For a dying mobster who confessed to stealing the iconic ruby slippers worn in “The Wizard of Oz” there’s no place like home – after he was spared prison time Monday.
Terry Jon Martin, 76, faced a Minnesota judge who sentenced him to time served for the hare-brained 2005 heist, which saw the reformed thief come out of retirement to pull off “one last score” by breaking into the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids and swiping the sparkly red shoes the actress wore while portraying Dorothy.
The ailing Martin remained stone-faced as the judge handed down the punishment — and was physically unable to fully rise from his chair at the end of the hearing.
His attorney, Dane DeKrey, said the resolution of the case should bring some closure to the government, the museum, the collector who owns the famous footwear and to Martin himself.
“They will never be made whole in this case,” DeKrey said of the victims. “But they’re more whole than they had been in the last 18 years.”
Martin is in hospice care and is expected to die within the next few months. He also requires constant oxygen therapy for chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder.
Chief US District Judge Patrick Schiltz accepted the recommendation of the prosecution and the defense that he sentence Martin to term served because of his declining health.
In delivering the verdict, the judge told the defendant, speaking over the loud hum of his oxygen machine, that he probably would have sentenced him to 10 years in prison if it was still 2005.
As part of his sentence, Martin will be required to pay $23,500 in restitution to the museum at a rate of $300 a month.
“I certainly do not want to minimize the seriousness of Mr. Martin’s crime,” Schiltz said. “Mr. Martin intended to steal and destroy an irreplaceable part of American culture.”
The entire caper hinged on a misunderstanding related to the value of the movie prop, Martin’s lawyer wrote in a court memo ahead of his sentencing.
Martin had left a life of crime behind in the late 1990s and was living as a law-abiding citizen when in 2005, he was approached by a former associate with ties to the mob, who told him ruby slippers worn by Garland in the 1939 classic had to be adorned with real gems to justify their $1 million insured value.
“At first, Terry declined the invitation to participate in the heist. But old habits die hard, and the thought of a ‘final score’ kept him up at night,” DeKrey wrote in the memo. “After much contemplation, Terry had a criminal relapse and decided to participate in the theft.”
Martin wasn’t charged with stealing the shoes encrusted with sequins and glass beads until last year.
Prosecutor Matthew Greenley said in court Monday that investigators used phone records to zero in on Martin, and used his wife’s immigration status as leverage to search Martin’s home and get him to confess to the heist.
In October 2023, he pleaded guilty to theft of a major artwork, admitting to using a hammer to smash the glass of the museum door and display case to take the slippers.
Martin said at the October hearing that he hoped to remove what he thought were real rubies from the shoes and sell them. But a person who deals in stolen goods, known as a fence, informed him the jewels weren’t real.
Martin got rid of the stolen slippers after they were in his possession for less than 48 hours.
Martin had no idea about the cultural significance of the ruby slippers and had never seen “The Wizard of Oz,” according to the lawyer.
Instead, the “old Terry” with a lifelong history involving burglary and receiving stolen property beat out the “new Terry” who had become “a contributing member of society” after his 1996 release from prison, the memo claimed.
After learning that the rubies on the shoes were fake, DeKrey wrote, Martin gave them to his old associate and told him he never wanted to see them again.
The FBI recovered the shoes in 2018 during a sting in Minneapolis, after someone approached the bureau saying they could help track down the stolen artifacts in exchange for the $200,000 reward the was being offered for their safe return.
Martin has refused to identify any accomplices, and no one else has ever been charged in the theft
Federal prosecutors have put the slippers’ market value at about $3.5 million.
In the beloved movie, Dorothy, played by Garland, 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 in Garland’s hometown before Martin stole them. The other three are held by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Smithsonian Museum of American History and a private collector.
John Kelsh, founding director of the Judy Garland Museum, said the slippers were returned to Shaw and are currently being held by an auction house that plans to sell them after a promotional tour.
With Post wires
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