A Colorado man was cited after greater than 200 newspapers have been stolen from distribution bins, stopping individuals from shopping for The Ouray County Plaindealer the day it printed a front-page story about an investigation into sexual assault on the dwelling of the Ouray metropolis police chief.
The Plaindealer mentioned in a note to readers on Thursday that the entire newspaper’s bins within the metropolis of Ouray and all however one within the city of Ridgway had been emptied after the weekly newspaper’s newest version had been distributed.
“Whoever did this doesn’t perceive that stealing newspapers doesn’t cease a narrative,” the word mentioned.
The Plaindealer has been working since 1877 and studies on information in mountainous Ouray County, which is about 165 miles southwest of Colorado Springs, and has simply over 5,000 residents.
The newspaper, which sells for $1, said on Thursday that somebody had taken all of the newspapers from inside a dozen distribution bins.
“From what we all know to date, it appears this individual put in 4 quarters and took all of the papers at these racks,” the newspaper mentioned. “It’s fairly clear that somebody didn’t need the group to learn the information this week.”
The stolen version featured a front-page story in regards to the arrests of three individuals after a 17-year-old woman mentioned she was raped at the very least 3 times by two totally different individuals on the dwelling of the Ouray police chief in Could 2023.
The police chief and others have been on the dwelling and asleep through the assaults, the newspaper reported. The chief, Jeff Wooden, didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Sunday.
The three individuals arrested have been 17, 18 and 19 on the time of the assaults, and one in all them is the police chief’s stepson, The Plaindealer reported.
The article didn’t identify the accuser, who’s now 18, but it surely included her description of what occurred that evening, primarily based on data in an arrest affidavit.
The Ouray County Sheriff’s Workplace said in a statement on Friday that the suspect within the newspaper theft was “not a member or relative of native legislation enforcement and never related to the defendants within the latest reported sexual assault.”
The reported sexual assaults are being investigated by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation “to take away any notion of bias, and to be above reproach,” the sheriff’s workplace mentioned.
Town of Ouray mentioned in a statement on Thursday that its police division had “not been concerned with the investigation” of the sexual assaults and that no personnel investigations have been being performed on the division.
The sheriff’s workplace didn’t identify the newspaper theft suspect in its assertion, however The Plaindealer mentioned the workplace had cited Paul Choate, 41, on suspicion of petty theft.
Mr. Choate, an area restaurant proprietor, returned the stolen newspapers to The Plaindealer workplace on Thursday evening with an apology, the newspaper mentioned.
He admitted that he had stolen the newspapers due to the front-page story, The Plaindealer reported. Mr. Choate couldn’t be reached for touch upon Sunday.
“The Plaindealer isn’t disclosing Choate’s relationship to the sexual assault case,” the newspaper mentioned. “The theft was not linked in any solution to the three defendants within the case, their households or the Ouray Police Division.”
The Plaindealer mentioned it had reprinted 250 copies of the version earlier than Mr. Choate returned the newspapers.
After The Plaindealer introduced the theft, it mentioned, it obtained greater than $2,000 in donations.
