Daredevil Gets Stuck on Lady Liberty

By Stephen M. Silverman

08/23/2001 at 05:51 PM EDT

A daredevil bungee jumper from France stopped traffic at the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor on Thursday when he got stuck on Lady Liberty's flame while hoping to land on her arm. After parachuting onto the massive copper statue's torch (in the icon's right hand), Thierry Devaux, 41, clung to Lady Liberty's arm some 390 feet in the air for a tense half-hour before police pulled him to safety and arrested him. The New York Times reports that he was charged with four federal misdemeanors, including reckless endangerment and illegal air activity, and tourists who had flocked to see the statue were evacuated and kept off of it for three hours. "There may be some humor in this," said Giuliani at a press conference, "but it's not funny when police officers' lives are put at stake, not by an idiot like this." Devaux claimed the stunt was his way of protesting the use of land mines. He was later released on $10,000 bail, and his lawyer indicated that the case might be resolved with "some sort of a plea." On Friday, Devaux was making local TV talk show rounds, accompanied by his lawyer. In broken English, Devaux told WNBC-TV, "(The police) were very nice, and I must thank them."