Wichita ? Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke Jr. testified Friday that he donated 10 miniature Kansas flags that he had taken to the moon to the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, not to its director.

Duke took the stand on the third day of testimony in the federal trial of Max Ary, the Cosmosphere’s former president and chief executive officer. Ary, 55, faces 19 federal counts ranging from mail fraud to money laundering in connection with the sale of space artifacts from the museum collection.

Duke, a retired Air Force brigadier general, testified that each of the small silk flags were appraised at $7,000. The former astronaut said he took a $70,000 tax deduction for them on his 1999 tax return, and Ary signed a tax form showing the Cosmosphere received the donation.

Such flags are part of personal items astronauts often take into space with them, said Duke, who also took U.S. and other state flags into space. He testified that he does not take tax deductions for items he gives as gifts to his grandchildren or friends. Such items are useful for museums because they can trade them to obtain other space exhibits.

In late 2003 or early 2004, Ary called Duke and asked him for a letter saying he had personally donated one of the flags to him. On Jan. 22, 2004, Duke wrote a carefully phrased letter stating he donated the 10 flags to the museum, but it was his understanding one of the flags could go to Ary.

“I felt very uncomfortable,” Duke said of Ary’s request. “I did that at his request because he was such a good man.”

But Duke also testified that Ary had built the Kansas Cosmosphere into a “premier facility for space artifact restoration.”

In testimony earlier this week, Cosmosphere president Jeff Ollenburger said that when he saw a Kansas flag in an auction sale catalog, he checked the museum’s collection and found it missing. Ollenburger has testified Ary denied knowing anything about the flag when asked about it.

Also introduced into evidence were boxes of space artifacts – including a space boot and Air Force control panel – seized under a search warrant from Ary’s home in Oklahoma and turned over to authorities by his attorney. Some of the artifacts still had Cosmosphere inventory tags attached.

FBI agent Barry Petru testified the boxes were found in Ary’s garage, office and laundry room.

On cross-examination, Petru acknowledged that among the evidence seized at Ary’s home was a letter from astronaut Tom Stafford stating that Ary could have a cloth patch flown on the Apollo 10 mission.

“I thought you would like to have one personally and one to the museum,” wrote Stafford, the first astronaut to participate in the joint U.S.-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz program of the 1970s.

Allen Fee, who served on the Cosmosphere board of directors between 1997 and 2004, testified the board never authorized Ary to give himself any Cosmosphere property. But he also acknowledged that Ary brought a lot of items to the Cosmosphere.

“I think Mr. Ary has a lot of vision,” Fee said.

Former Cosmosphere employee Stephen Garner testified that when he became curator in 1992, after working as a museum volunteer, the center’s inventory was in disarray and Ary told him to get it in order.

The defense contends Ary did not intend to steal anything and disputes that the museum owned all the items Ary is accused of selling.

The charges carry a maximum penalty of up to five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine on each of the wire fraud and mail fraud counts. He faces a maximum penalty of up to 10 years and a $250,000 fine on each count of theft and each count of transportation of stolen property.

Two counts ask for the return of any property or proceeds Ary received as a result of the alleged crimes.