A dying thief who stole a pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz because he wanted to get ‘one last score’ has not been sent to prison.
Terry Jon Martin, 76, stole the slippers in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in the late actor’s hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
He gave in to temptation after a longtime associate with Mafia connections told him the shoes needed to be decorated with real jewelry to justify their $1 million value.
Martin showed little emotion as the judge pronounced the sentence and was unable to get up from his seat when the judge adjourned the hearing.
He refused to address the court. But attorney Dane DeKrey said the resolution of the case should provide some closure for the government, the museum, the slippers’ owner and Martin himself.
Terry Jon Martin, 76, stole the slippers decorated with sequins and glass beads in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in the late actor’s hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota
Martin gave in to temptation after a longtime associate with Mafia connections told him the shoes needed to be decorated with real jewelry to justify the $1 million insured value, his attorney revealed in a memo to federal court ahead of his sentencing in Duluth.
The government could hold one person liable, DeKrey said, while the museum and the collector who owns the slippers had to figure out what happened.
And Martin was able to close this chapter in the last months of his life instead of taking his secret to his grave.
“They will never be healed in this case,” the lawyer said of the victims. “But they are more complete than they have been in the last eighteen years.”
The FBI recovered the shoes in 2018 when someone else tried to claim a reward. Martin was only charged with theft last year.
Prosecutor Matthew Greenley said in court Monday that investigators used phone records to track down Martin, and used his wife’s immigration status as leverage to search Martin’s home and get him to confess.
He pleaded guilty in October to the theft of a large work of art, admitting to using a hammer to smash the glass of the museum door and the display case to take the slippers.
But his motivation remained largely a mystery until DeKrey revealed it in a lawsuit this month.
Martin, who lives near Grand Rapids, said at the October hearing that he hoped to remove what he believed were real rubies from the shoes and sell them.
Martin showed little emotion as the judge pronounced the sentence and was physically unable to fully rise from his chair when the judge adjourned the hearing. He refused to address the court
Garland made the ruby slippers famous in the 1939 film classic ‘The Wizard of Oz’
The slippers that Judy Garland once wore in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ are shown during a press conference on September 4, 2018 at the FBI office in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota
But a person who deals in stolen goods, known as a fence, told him the rubies weren’t real, Martin said. So he took off the slippers.
DeKrey wrote in his memo that Martin’s unidentified former associate persuaded him to steal the slippers as “a final score,” even though Martin seemed to have “finally put his demons to rest” after serving his last prison sentence nearly a decade earlier .
‘At first Terry declined the invitation to take part in the robbery. But old habits die hard, and the thought of a ‘final score’ kept him awake at night,” DeKrey wrote.
‘After much thought, Terry had a criminal relapse and decided to participate in the theft.’
Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz accepted both sides’ recommendation to sentence Martin to prison because he is homebound in hospice care and expected to die within a few months.
He requires constant oxygen therapy due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and had to be taken to the courtroom in a wheelchair. The loud hum of his oxygen machine echoed through the courtroom.
Schiltz told Martin that he probably would have sentenced him to 10 years in prison if it were still 2005.
The judge also accepted both parties’ recommendation that Martin pay $23,500 in restitution to the museum and ordered him to pay $300 per month.
Garland wore several pairs during filming, but only four authentic pairs are known to exist
Rhys Thomas, author of ‘the Ruby Slippers of Oz’ takes a photo of a pair of ruby slippers once worn by Judy Garland in ‘The Wizard of Oz’
“I certainly do not want to minimize the seriousness of Mr. Martin’s crime,” the judge said. ‘Mr. Martin intended to steal and destroy an irreplaceable part of American culture.”
According to DeKrey’s memo, Martin had no idea of the cultural significance of the ruby slippers and had never seen “The Wizard of Oz.”
Instead, DeKrey said, the “old Terry” with a lifelong history of burglaries and receiving stolen property defeated the “new Terry” who had become “a contributing member of society” after his 1996 release from prison.
After the fence told Martin the rubies were fake, DeKrey wrote, he gave the slippers to his old colleague and told him he never wanted to see them again. The lawyer said Martin never heard from the man again.
Martin has declined to identify anyone else involved in the theft, and no one else has ever been charged in the case.
The FBI has never revealed exactly how it tracked down the slippers. The agency said a man approached the insurer in 2017, claiming he could help get them back, but demanded more than the $200,000 reward that was offered.
The slippers were recovered the following year during an FBI sting in Minneapolis.
Federal prosecutors estimate the market value of the slippers at about $3.5 million.
Another pair of ruby slippers is on display at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles
John Kelsch, executive director of the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, where Martin stole the priceless artwork in 2005. He says the slippers are being held by an auction house that plans to sell them after a promotional tour and is unlikely to do so. back to the museum
In the classic 1939 musical, Garland’s character, Dorothy, had to click the heels of her ruby slippers three times and repeat, “There’s no place like home,” to return to Kansas from Oz.
She wore several pairs during filming, but only four authentic pairs are known to exist.
Hollywood memorabilia collector Michael Shaw had loaned one pair to the museum before Martin stole them.
The other three are owned by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Smithsonian Museum of American History and a private collector.
According to John Kelsch, founder and director of the Judy Garland Museum, the slippers have been returned to Shaw and are being held by an auction house that plans to sell them after a promotional tour.
He told reporters he doubts they will ever come back to Grand Rapids.
Garland was born Frances Gumm in 1922. She lived in Grand Rapids, about 200 miles north of Minneapolis, until she was four, when her family moved to Los Angeles. She died in 1969.
The Judy Garland Museum, including the house where she lived and says it has the world’s largest collection of Garland and “Wizard of Oz” memorabilia.
The museum’s executive director, Janie Heitz, said in court that the theft cost it “a significant amount of credibility” and made it more difficult to borrow other objects related to Garland and the film, as well as hurting visitor numbers .