posted September 28, 2005 04:33 PM               

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A federal judge decided Tuesday to allow the use of evidence collected during a search of former Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center Director Max Ary's house.

U.S. District Court Judge J. Thomas Marten ruled Tuesday that the government's search of Ary's then-Oklahoma City home in December 2003 was legal.

Ary's attorney, Lee Thompson, had argued Monday that the search was improper and evidence collected during it should be thrown out.

Ary, 55, has pleaded innocent to 19 charges of stealing and selling artifacts housed at the Cosmosphere. He was the Cosmosphere's president for more than 26 years before leaving for an Oklahoma museum in 2002.

In denying a defense motion to suppress the evidence, Marten said that Ary had waived the privilege to keep seized documents he had prepared for his attorney out of the hands of the government.

Those documents, collected during the search, included a list describing various space artifacts Ary claims he owned and how he came to possess them.

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