A terminally ill man who confessed to pilfering Judy Garland’s ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz has avoided going to jail.
Terry Jon Martin, 76, admitted stealing a significant piece of art in October.
His attorneys negotiated a plea agreement for time served, asking for no jail time.
After being persuaded to carry out the heist in 2005 by an old mob associate, Martin claimed he stole the slippers in order to have “one last score.”
The former mob boss was unable to get out of his chair when the hearing concluded on Monday in Duluth, Minnesota, and displayed no emotion when the sentence was read, according to the Associated Press.
According to his attorneys, Martin, who has served time for multiple burglaries in the past, is in hospice care and only has six months to live.
When someone broke in through a window late at night in 2005, the ruby slippers were taken from a museum in Minnesota.
Martin’s defense attorney, Dane DeKrey, requested leniency in a memo last week, stating that his client had not committed any crimes in almost a decade since his last release from jail.
He was enticed to take the slippers, which were lent to the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, by an unidentified former mob associate.
Terry first turned down the offer to take part in the heist. However, ingrained routines persist, and the notion of a “final score” kept him awake at night, according to Mr. DeKrey.
Martin acknowledged using a hammer to break through the glass of the museum door and the display case in order to obtain the slippers, which had a $1 million (£788,000) insurance policy.
He claimed that after learning that the rubies in the slippers were actually made of glass, he decided to part with the gems, which he had intended to try to sell.
Martin further asserted that he was unaware of the cultural significance of the slippers or having seen the Wizard of Oz movie.
Thirteen years passed before he was charged with the crime; during that time, a man approached the insurer, saying he could help get the slippers back, and an FBI art crime team found them during a sting operation.
It is known that at least five of Garland’s ruby slippers survived the filming process.