The former owner of a factory where workers staged a sit-in last year was charged in state court on Thursday with plotting to steal money from the workers and the company’s creditors in what prosecutors portrayed as a case of “corporate greed.”
Officials from the Cook County state’s attorney’s office said the owner, Richard B. Gillman, created two shell corporations to launder more than $200,000 from accounts at the factory, Republic Windows and Doors, and that even as he was closing the factory, he secretly loaded 10 semi-trailer trucks with equipment to furnish a new factory in Iowa.

Mr. Gillman was held in $10 million bail. His lawyer, Ed Genson, said the bail was excessively high; prosecutors had asked for $500,000 bail.

“This is ridiculous,” Mr. Genson said in an interview. “It’s just a play for publicity after all the publicity the workers got.”

The factory drew national attention last December, when more than 250 workers, complaining that they had been laid off without warning, occupied it for six days. Eventually they won concessions, including severance pay. Many local officials met with workers during the sit-in to show support; former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, for example, visited the day before he was arrested on federal corruption charges. Other workers have since successfully copied the approach, including those at the Hartmarx suit factory in a Chicago suburb.

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