Laguna Beach : Missing Liberty Bust Found but Not in Time for Grand Unveiling at Newport Beach Cabaret

Liberty was found, but in the interests of justice, she missed her unveiling Wednesday at the grand opening celebration for a Newport Beach club.

An eight-foot-tall fiberglass bust of the Statue of Liberty, which disappeared over the weekend from its resting place outside the America After Dark dine-and-dance cabaret, was found only a little worse for wear late Tuesday at the El Morro Beach Mobilehome Park near Laguna Beach, authorities said.

But what with fingerprinting for clues to the culprits who took the statue and all, the replica of Miss Liberty missed her opening-night debut Wednesday, said John Bellamy, one of the owners of the club in the 4200 block of Martingale Way. The bust was to be placed above the club’s entrance, he said, before it disappeared.

Bellamy said he believes it would have taken at least four people to lift the 500-pound bust, one of two he had purchased for the club.

Orange County sheriff’s deputies found the huge statue, with a few points missing from the crown, near a dumpster inside the mobile home park late Tuesday, authorities said.

Bellamy said he received an anonymous phone call Wednesday from a person who told him that the statue had been stolen because someone wanted to use it in a photo layout for a surfing magazine. Newport Beach police could not confirm that, but Bellamy said: “I can believe it. . . . It can only happen in America.”