Man Who Stole Judy Garland'sWizard of OzGlass Slippers Sentenced to Time Served and Probation

Mar. 15, 2025

On Monday, Terry Jon Martin received time sentenced and one year of probation for the crime at the U.S. District Court in Duluth, Minn., after he entered a guilty plea in October, asThe New York Timesand theAssociated Pressreported. Martin, 76, was also ordered to pay roughly $23,000 to Minnesota’s Judy Garland Museum, where he stole the slippers from in an Aug. 27, 2005 heist.

TheAssociated Presspreviously reported on Jan. 22 that Martin’s defense attorney, Dane DeKrey, said that Martin decided to take part in the crime after an unidentified former mob associate encouraged him to commit “one last score” with the theft and told him the shoes were adorned with real jewels. The man had testified that he disposed of the slippers fewer than two days after stealing them, once he was informed the rubies were made of glass, per the AP. Martin was not familiar with their cultural significance and had never seenThe Wizard of Ozbefore the theft, the outlet reported.

Martin’s sentence came after his defense attorney and federal prosecutors both recommended that the man receive time served because he is in hospice care and not expected to live for more than six months, as multiple outlets reported Monday. He did not address the court Monday during his sentencing hearing, per the AP.

Terry Jon Martin on Oct. 13, 2023.Dan Kraker/Minnesota Public Radio via AP

Dan Kraker/Minnesota Public Radio via AP

“They will never be made whole in this case,” DeKrey said of the victims involved, per the AP. “But they’re more whole than they had been in the last 18 years.”

DeKrey wrote in a memo that Martin initially “declined the invitation to participate” in the 2005 heist. The man had previously had previously been convicted in 1988 on a felony charge of receiving stolen goods and had not committed a crime since his 1996 release from prison, per the AP.

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“But old habits die hard, and the thought of a ‘final score’ kept him up at night,” the defense attorney wrote, per the AP. “After much contemplation, Terry had a criminal relapse and decided to participate in the theft.”

“His intent was singular: He believed the gemstones affixed to the slippers were real rubies, and so he hoped to steal the slippers, remove the rubies, and sell them on the black market through a jewelry-fence,” DeKrey added in the memo, perThe New York Times.

Judy Garland’s slippers in ‘The Wizard of Oz’.Mgm/Kobal/Shutterstock

Mgm/Kobal/Shutterstock

The FBI announced via apress releasethat its agents had recovered the slippers in Minneapolis in September 2018 while investigating a scheme to defraud and extort the Markel Corporation, which owns the slippers. The Judy Garland Museum was exhibiting the slippers on loan at the time of the 2005 theft, asCBSreported in 2018.

source: people.com