Man appears in court accused of stealing a pair of red trousers shoes worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, North Dakota federal prosecutors said. The shoes were stolen in 2005 and recovered in an FBI operation in 2018, but no arrests were made at the time.

Prosecutors announced on Wednesday that Terry Martin has been charged with stealing a major work of art. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported that Martin is 76 years old and lives 12 miles south of the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

When they stole the shoes in question were insured for $1 million, but have a current market value of around $3.5 million.This was stated in the federal prosecutor’s office in North Dakota.

The famous shoes were stolen in 2005 from a museum dedicated to the actress in her hometown of Minnesota, when a burglar broke into the premises through a window and snatched them from the window they were on display.

The shoes were loaned to the museum by Hollywood memorabilia collector Michael Shaw. It was one of at least four pairs Garland wore in the 1939 film. The remaining three are in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Smithsonian, and a private collector.

In the popular 1939 film, “Dorothy” clicks her heels three times and repeats the phrase “There’s no better place than home” to return from Oz to her tornado-damaged farm in Kansas.

According to the Associated Press