NEWPORT — Police have arrested two people they say are responsible for two robberies at a Rite Aid pharmacy here and an attempted robbery at a Rite Aid in Pittsfield.

Jonah Masse, 25, and Sydney Duff, 20, both of Dixmont, were arrested at their home around 3:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon and each was charged with two counts of class B robbery.

They are being held at the Penobscot County Jail on $50,000 cash bail each.

Police Chief Leonard Macdaid said that his department had been working with the Pittsfield police as well as the Brewer Police Department, Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department and the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency to catch the Newport and PIttsfield robbers. Lt. Randy Wing of Newport was the chief investigator on the case.

“We’ve been working on this for three weeks,” Macdaid said. “We had a lot of different information and different leads and we just kept working on it.”

He said that after Tuesday afternoon — hours after the attempted robbery in Pittsfield — they had an idea that the robberies in Newport and Pittsfield might be by the same people.

Masse and Duff have yet to be charged in Pittsfield, but Macdaid said they will probably be charged with attempted robbery there.

“We interviewed them and they said they weren’t going to stop robbing places unless they got caught, so we’re very happy we got them,” he said.

The two robberies in Newport and the attempted robbery in Pittsfield all were in the last six weeks.

The Newport Rite Aid, which is at Routes 100 and U.S. Route 2, was robbed of prescription drugs on Aug. 16 and Sept. 16. Rite Aid had offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the Sept. 16 robbery.

The attempted robbery at the Pittsfield store, at 506 Somerset Ave., just off Interstate 95, Tuesday morning failed after the pharmacist refused to hand over the drugs.

Rachel Ohm — 612-2368

rohm@mainetoday.com

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