Wichita ? Prosecutors wrapped up their case Wednesday against the former head of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center accused of stealing and selling artifacts from the museum he helped found.

NASA investigator Michael Mataya, the final witness called by prosecutors, said Max Ary made about $65,000 by selling Cosmosphere and NASA items in 2000 and 2001. Mataya also testified about a 2003 search of Ary’s home during which some items belonging to the Cosmosphere were found, but defense attorney Lee Thompson questioned Mataya’s qualifications and experience when it comes to executing federal search warrants.

Ary, the Cosmosphere’s president and chief executive officer for more than 26 years before leaving in 2002, is being tried on 19 federal charges of stealing and selling artifacts from the museum he helped found.

The defense contends Ary did not intend to steal anything, while acknowledging some items seized in the search belonged to the Cosmosphere. Defense attorneys claim that Ary, who often worked out of his home office, simply forgot he had those boxes when he moved.

After prosecutors rested their case Wednesday, Thompson asked U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten to dismiss the case. Marten denied the request.

On Tuesday, the Cosmosphere’s finance director, Kent Shank, testified that Ary’s salary dropped from $204,000 to $145,000 in 1998, the year before he allegedly started selling space artifacts.

Shank said Ary’s salary ranged from $145,000 to $169,000 during his final four years at the museum, and he also lost a bonus when the museum’s for-profit subsidiary shut down.

Thompson contended that Ary deferred or turned down compensation to help the museum, and was denied retirement funds that he should have been given when he left the museum. Prosecutors disputed that Ary was owed any funds from a “rabbi trust” that required Ary, 55, to work for the museum into his early 60s.

Also Tuesday, Thompson asked Jim Remar, Cosmosphere vice president of museum operations, about his knowledge of the museum’s collections and his qualifications and actions as curator.

Remar testified Monday that space artifacts sold by Ary through auctions, recovered from his home or found in boxes provided by Ary’s attorney were owned by the Cosmosphere or on loan to the museum from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

On Tuesday, Thompson questioned whether documents identifying unique markers on one set of artifacts – spacesuit pressure gauges – were added after the fact to show Cosmosphere ownership.

He also claimed the Cosmosphere listed items, which Ary sold, as missing from its collection when it had no ownership documentation for them.

Also testifying Tuesday was former Cosmosphere curator Sharon Olson-Womack, who told jurors that she left the museum because of concerns about how Ary managed the museum’s artifact collections.

Olson-Womack, who refused to sign some of the museum’s loan agreements because the items couldn’t be accounted for, said Ary asked her to change records to show that items previously listed as being on loan from NASA were owned by the Cosmosphere.