NATCHEZ — Two men were arrested on charges of petit larceny Friday in connection with the theft of multiple copies of The Natchez Democrat.

Tyrone A. Green, 55, 306 Orleans St., and Kelvin Dywanna Jones, 29, 583 B Lower Woodville Road, both face petit larceny charges.

Jones was driving a car that was stopped on Minor Street for an expired tag violation, Natchez Police Chief Mike Mullins said.

Officers who had been in contact with Democrat Audience Director Sam King then discovered 42 unrolled copies of Friday’s edition of The Democrat, eight rolled copies of the newspaper, four copies of The Clarion-Ledger, three copies of USA Today, a bag of rubber bands and a box of newspaper bags.

Neither Green nor Jones is contracted to deliver copies of The Democrat.

No bond had been set for Green Friday afternoon. Jones, who also faces charges of no driver’s license, expired tags and no proof of insurance, has a bond of $1,762.

The Democrat has received multiple calls in recent months that someone was stealing newspapers from newspaper vending racks around town and re-delivering them to customers who were paying the newspaper thieves, not The Democrat, Publisher Kevin Cooper said.

Friday’s arrest occurred after King witnessed Green remove a stack of newspapers from a Democrat rack, King said. He reported the matter to the Natchez Police.

Cooper said the issue of stolen newspapers is a serious and costly one.

“People often think, ‘What’s the fuss? It’s just a few newspapers’ but collectively this adds up to significant loss for our newspaper, its employees and our contracted newspaper carriers,” he said.

“For example, last year, the amount of newspapers stolen out of our newspaper racks were valued at more than $200,000. That number may seem staggering and it is, but when people are consistently stealing newspapers and redelivering them illegally, the numbers add up fast. And that’s not counting the newspapers reportedly stolen from other newspaper racks such as The Clarion Ledger and USA Today, both of which have reported similar kinds of theft.”

Many customers may not realize they are receiving stolen newspapers, Cooper said.

“We hold no grudge against the customers to whom this person was delivering newspapers. We have reason to believe that most of them were unaware this person was not acting as a legitimate, contracted newspaper carrier for The Democrat. Many were likely duped into thinking they were paying an honest delivery person.”

Anyone who believes they were receiving a stolen newspaper can contact The Democrat office at 601-442-9101 to check and become officially subscribed.

“For customers who were deceived into paying these criminals, believing they were purchasing the newspaper legitimately, we’ll consider extending credit so they will receive what they paid for — only from a legitimate source,” Cooper said.

King first began talking with NPD investigators about the issue months ago.

“I applaud the work of Sam King, who worked over several weeks to gather evidence of this ongoing crime. He’s done an excellent job working with the Natchez Police to help catch this person in the act,” Cooper said.

“We hope investigators and prosecutors realize the collective volume of theft that is committed, one handful of newspapers at a time, every day and seek to appropriately prosecute the perpetrators to the fullest degree allowable by law.”