Police investigators now believe that the two home-alone kids who died in Sunday's fatal fire in Canarsie set the blaze themselves - and no longer think it was arson.
Their mother, Kim Brathwaite, faces up to four years in jail for leaving the kids - Justina Mason, 9, and Justin Brathwaite, 19 months - alone while she worked her night shift at a Brooklyn McDonald's.
Prosecutors, police and Brathwaite's lawyer differed yesterday over whether the single mom had known her baby sitter was not going to show up at the time she left for work.
Prosecutors said that Brathwaite, 35, had made arrangements for a baby sitter to watch the children from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. Her shift runs from 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. Even that arrangement would have left the kids alone for a total of nine hours - including the time when the blaze broke out at 1:50 a.m.
Police sources said she left for work even after learning the baby sitter canceled.
Brathwaite's lawyer, Douglas Rankin, contended that Brathwaite did not learn the baby sitter had failed to show until Justina called her sometime during her shift at the fast-food restaurant.
He said Brathwaite then called an upstairs neighbor to keep an eye on the kids.
"She frantically tried to make arrangements for child care," Rankin said.
Police would not say whether they believed a neighbor had been contacted.
Fire investigators had initially ruled the blaze "suspicious" because of the presence of flammable liquids.
About a half-dozen relatives, some in tears, attended Brathwaite's arraignment yesterday, where Judge William Garnett ordered her held on $35,000 bail.
Outside court, Rankin blasted the high bail, saying the woman would be in custody and miss her two kids' funerals.
"This is really a horrible, horrible tragedy that's been compounded by the criminal-justice system," he said. But hours later, Brathwaite made bail, according to the Correction Department.
At Brathwaite's charred home yesterday, neighbors lit candles and left a rosary in memory of the dead children. Her landlord's fianc
