Hutchinson ? The former head of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center director accused of stealing artifacts is suing the museum for more than $300,000 in damages, saying it has items that belong to him and that it breached his contract.

Max Ary’s attorney, Lee Thompson, filed the lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court. Cosmosphere president Jeff Ollenburger declined comment Tuesday.

Ary, who left the Cosmosphere in 2002 to take a job at a similar facility in Oklahoma City, has pleaded not guilty to charges he illegally stole items belonging to the space museum for as much as $195,000. Charges against him range from mail fraud to money laundering.

Items he is accused of stealing include the nose cone of a rocket, an astronaut’s in-flight T-shirt, a control panel from Air Force One and an Apollo 12 water valve.

Thompson argued that many of the items in the Cosmosphere’s collection actually belong to Ary.

“Upon requests to inspect the Cosmosphere collection in order to examine his own property, the Cosmosphere has refused to permit such inspections,” Thompson says in the suit.

“Without the opportunity to examine and inspect the personal property which has been intermingled with property belonging to the Cosmosphere and others, Ary is unable to ascertain a precise amount of value or damages which may be due to him for his property retained by the Cosmosphere.”

The lawsuit claims the Cosmosphere breached Ary’s contract after he left the museum. It is seeking more than $75,000 in damages for money Ary expected to receive from an irrevocable trust established in 1999. It was designated as a retirement package for Ary.

Ary founded the Hutchinson museum in 1976.