CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / LOS ANGELES

The 6-foot bronze statue of a gold miner stolen last February from the Carthay Circle area and later recovered from a Los Angeles scrap yard is back on familiar ground, where it will be fully installed in the next two weeks, city officials said Monday.

Thieves made off with the 512-pound sculpture in February, cutting it from its base at the busy intersection of San Vicente Boulevard and McCarthy Vista.

Detectives with the Los Angeles Police Department’s art theft detail tracked down the statue -- which had been sliced in two -- at a local scrap yard, where it was purchased for $900.

Sebastian Espana, 22, and Jessie Hernandez, 23, were later arrested on suspicion of grand theft in connection with a string of thefts of bronze statues and sculptures in the Wilshire area and Beverly Hills.

Each pleaded no contest to two counts of felony grand theft and was sentenced in July to 16 months in state prison. They were also ordered to pay $31,700 each in restitution.

Sculpted by Henry Lion in 1924 and 1925, the miner, along with a fountain, commemorated 19th century settlers in California. Its reinstallation, nearly a year in the making, is expected to take a week to 10 days.