photo by: Kansas Department of Corrections

Chester Wendell Brockman, left, Markcus Trey Sanders, right

Updated at 4:50 p.m. Friday

Two men were charged Friday in Douglas County District Court in connection with an alleged armed robbery Thursday at a home in Lawrence.

Chester Wendell Brockman, 50, of Lawrence, and Markcus Trey Sanders, 28, of Kansas City, Kansas, were arrested Thursday in the 700 block of Walnut Street in Lawrence, according to the Douglas County Jail booking log. On Friday, they made their first court appearances via Zoom from the jail. They were each formally charged with one count of aggravated robbery, a level-three felony, and one count of aggravated burglary, a level-four felony.

Douglas County District Court Judge Blake Glover said that depending on their criminal history they could each face 20 years in prison for the robbery charge and 14 years for the burglary charge.

The arrests came after officers responded around 3 p.m. to the 3000 block of Bainbridge Circle, where a woman reported that she had been robbed at gunpoint by two men, said Laura McCabe, a spokeswoman with the Lawrence Police Department.

The woman reported that she was at home with her 2-year-old child when two men came into the home, one of them armed with a handgun. The suspects allegedly took money and other items from the woman and fled to a nearby vehicle. Police later identified the vehicle using surveillance video in the area, McCabe said.

Police were able to locate a vehicle matching the description at a residence in North Lawrence and began surveilling the property. Police waited until the suspects left the residence, then took one into custody during a traffic stop without incident. Another suspect was arrested after a short car chase that ended when Douglas County sheriff’s deputies used a tactical maneuver near the intersection of Seventh and Maple streets to stop the car, McCabe said.

A third man was arrested but was not booked on charges related to the robbery. Connell O. Wilson, 41, of Lawrence, was arrested on warrants for failure to appear in court, according to the jail booking log.

Assistant District Attorney Paula Bustamante on Friday asked the judge to set bonds of $100,000 for the two men because of what she called their “extensive criminal histories” and multiple municipal court warrants.

Glover set a cash bond of $100,000 for each. Both are next scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday. Glover appointed attorney Michael Clarke to represent Sanders and attorney Hatem Chahine to represent Brockman.

Brockman has multiple felony convictions in Douglas County, including three theft convictions in 2015, aggravated battery in 2013 and multiple felony drug convictions, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.

Sanders has two felony convictions for burglary and one conviction for intimidation of a witness, all of which were in 2012 in Douglas County, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.