Wichita ? Former Kansas Cosmosphere & Space Center president Max Ary said Wednesday he looked forward to clearing his name when he goes on trial on federal charges of fraud, theft and transporting stolen goods involving the museum he helped create.

Ary, 55, faces two counts of wire fraud, three counts of mail fraud, two counts of theft of government property and three counts of interstate transportation of stolen property.

“My defense is very, very simple: It’s ‘I’m not guilty,’ ” Ary said on the steps of the federal courthouse in Wichita.

Ary is on a leave of absence as executive director of Kirkpatrick Science and Air Space Museum at Omniplex in Oklahoma City. He joined that museum in 2002 after spending 27 years at the Cosmosphere, which he helped create.

With his attorney, Lee Thompson, at his side, Ary said he was confident he ultimately would be cleared of the charges against him, which are the result of an investigation into artifacts reported missing from the Cosmosphere after the museum conducted an internal audit in 2003.

“I look forward to the opportunity, in court, to be able to bring the other facts of this case out clearly in the public,” Ary said. “I also look forward to having the opportunity to be able to defend my integrity and, above all, my innocence.”

He is accused of committing mail and wire fraud by filing a false $50,000 insurance claim for the loss of an Omega astronaut mock-up watch worth $25,000 and other lost or damaged artifacts in 2001.

The indictment accuses Ary of selling space artifacts from the Cosmosphere’s inventory that were owned by the space flight museum and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Thompson said Ary’s defense would challenge the claim that some of the roughly 100 items reported as missing in November 2003 were stolen.

“It would be a real mistake to assume that because an item is listed as missing the in inventory of the Cosmosphere that it is the result of theft or wrongdoing,” Thompson said.

He said attorneys also would dispute the claim that NASA or the Cosmosphere owned all the artifacts that were sold in what Thompson called “very public auctions.”

U.S. Magistrate Judge Don Bostwick on Wednesday set a $10,000 unsecured bond for Ary and assigned the case to Judge J. Thomas Marten.