Records show items given to investigators belonged to Wichita museum

Tuesday, September 13th 2005, 6:27 am

By: News On 6

HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) Documents indicate that at least 22 space artifacts that the attorney for former Kansas Cosmosphere president Max Ary turned over to federal authorities belonged to the Cosmosphere.

Ary is now director of the Kirkpatrick Science and Air Space Museum at Omniplex in Oklahoma City, where he came after leaving the Cosmosphere in 2002.

He's charged in Wichita with 19 counts ranging from mail fraud to money laundering for allegedly taking the items.

Copies of invoices and canceled checks obtained by a Kansas newspaper show they were bought for the museum with Cosmosphere money from an auction house in California.

The 22 items ranged from autographed astronaut memorabilia to small pieces of air and spacecraft.

They're worth an estimated $13,000 and the records don't indicate museum officials authorized their release.