Conviction in space sales case

By Irene Mona Klotz
at Cape Canaveral, Florida

Mr Ary built a space museum in the middle of Kansas

A former museum chief has been found guilty of 12 federal crimes stemming from the sale of space artefacts that he did not own.

Max Ary never denied that he sold government-owned and museum-owned space artefacts through a private auctioneer.

But he steadfastly maintained artefacts were inadvertently mixed up with items sold from his personal collection.

His lawyer attempted to portray the 55-year-old Mr Ary as "a dreamer, not a schemer".

Mr Ary ran the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, Kansas, for 25 years and also played a key role in the recovery of the lost Liberty Bell 7 capsule, which took Virgil "Gus" Grissom on the second US sub-orbital spaceflight in 1961.

Jurors spent seven days listening to testimony, then deliberated just seven hours before convicting Mr Ary of 12 charges, including two counts each of wire fraud, money laundering and theft of government property and three counts each of mail fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property.

Sentencing set

Mr Ary could be imprisoned for up to five years and fined $250,000 (£142,000) for each count of fraud.

Mr Ary helped recover the Liberty Bell 7 capsule

The charges of theft, money laundering and transportation of stolen property carry prison terms of up to 10 years and fines of $250,000 for each offence.

US District Judge Thomas Marten set sentencing for 19 January 2006. The jury also ordered Mr Ary to pay $124,140 (£70,000) - money he had received from the sales - to the government.

"I swear on my life and soul he did not do what he was charged with today. God help this world and what it has become," Mr Ary's son, Jason, wrote in a forum on the CollectSpace.com website.

Among the items Mr Ary was charged with selling are an Apollo 15 data recording tape, a control panel from Air Force One, spacesuit components, a lunar sample bag, and personal items carried into space by astronauts.

Historic items

Mr Ary acknowledged he sold artefacts that did not belong to him, but said they had been accidentally mixed up with items that had been given to him personally as gifts or through trades.

"At no time while employed at the Cosmosphere did I ever intend to cheat or do anything improper for the Cosmosphere," Mr Ary testified.

Apollo astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, vouched for Mr Ary's character, devotion and trust. The jury also heard from Apollo-Soyuz commander Tom Stafford and Apollo astronaut Charles Duke.

In the end, though, the jury did not believe Mr Ary's contention that the sales, which took place in 2000 and 2001, were the result of a mix-up, brought about in part from the stress of a difficult 1999 Liberty Bell 7 recovery expedition at sea and the sudden deaths of both his parents later that year.

Prosecutors had laid out a well-documented paper trail showing the artefacts' sales and subsequent deposits into Mr Ary's personal bank accounts.

"The evidence showed that Max Ary knowingly sold space artefacts that belonged to the Cosmosphere or Nasa and deposited the money in his personal accounts," said US District Attorney Eric Melgren.

"On all these counts, the jury determined that he did it voluntarily and intentionally, not because of a mistake or some other innocent reason."