Dying Thief Who Stole ‘Wizard of Oz’ Ruby Slippers From the Judy Garland Museum Gets No Prison Time

TIME

In Duluth, Minnesota, a dying thief who confessed to stealing a pair of ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in “The Wizard of Oz” was given no prison time at his sentencing hearing.

Transcript

00:00 [PAPER RUSTLING]

00:12 This was a sentencing hearing for Terry Martin, the dying

00:17 thief who recently confessed that he was the person who

00:20 stole a pair of ruby slippers that were used in the movie

00:24 The Wizard of Oz from a museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota

00:28 in 2005.

00:30 Martin was brought into the courthouse in Duluth,

00:34 Minnesota in a wheelchair.

00:35 He requires oxygen for his chronic obstructive pulmonary

00:39 disease.

00:40 And his attorneys say that he has only a few months

00:42 left to live.

00:44 As a result, he didn't display a lot of emotion in the courtroom.

00:50 He was wearing a surgical mask and sat quietly in his chair.

00:55 Martin was sentenced to time served,

00:57 which is minimal at this point.

00:59 He confessed-- he changed his plea to guilty back in October.

01:05 And he's been free on his own recognizance since then.

01:11 And under the terms of the plea agreement,

01:14 which Judge Patrick Schultz accepted,

01:18 Martin was going back to his home in Grand Rapids

01:22 to live out the rest of his life.

01:24 The whereabouts of the slippers had been a mystery

01:27 until 2018 when the FBI revealed that it had recovered them

01:31 in a sting operation.

01:33 The FBI never revealed many details

01:35 on how it recovered the slippers.

01:37 But according to the museum's founding director,

01:40 they're back in the hands of the collector who had originally

01:43 loaned them to the museum.

01:44 And the collector is now preparing

01:48 to have them auctioned off and to take them

01:50 on a promotional tour before the sale in about a year.

01:54 Defense attorney Dane DeCray said in court

01:57 that this resolution to the case brings a certain amount

02:00 of closure to all sides, however imperfect.

02:03 He says it brings closure to the government

02:06 because they've now been able to hold one person accountable

02:09 for this crime.

02:10 He says that it brings some closure to the museum

02:14 and to the owner of the slippers because they now

02:16 know what happened and they got the slippers back.

02:20 And he says it brings a certain amount of closure

02:22 to Mr. Martin as well.

02:24 He says that's because Martin gets to close out

02:26 this last chapter in his life and he can die

02:30 with out taking the secret to his grave.

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