Terry Jon Martin, 76, stole the slippers in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in the late actor’s home town of Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
He gave in to temptation after an old mob associate told him the shoes had to be adorned with real jewels to justify their insured value of one million dollars (£787,000), his lawyer said in a memo to the federal court ahead of his sentencing in Duluth, also in Minnesota.
The FBI recovered the shoes in 2018 when someone else tried to claim a reward. Martin was not charged with stealing them until last year.
He pleaded guilty in October 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. But his motivation remained mostly a mystery until defence lawyer Dane DeKrey revealed it this month.
Martin, who lives near Grand Rapids, said at the October hearing that he hoped…
