Max Ary Sues The Cosmosphere

Monday, Sept. 19, 2005

Max Ary, the Cosmosphere’s former director, sues for breach of contract.

Ary will be in U.S. court a month from now, defending himself on the criminal charges, including theft of property. But this is the latest suit, just now coming to light after being filed Friday. It’s a civil suit claiming the Cosmosphere owes Ary hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In the ongoing saga of the Kansas Cosmosphere against it’s former long-time director, Ary, it’s now Ary who’s making the charges against the Cosmosphere. It involves what Ary claims are broken promises.

“The lawsuit alleges there were certain promises made as to compensation,” says Ary’s attorney, Lee Thompson. “Mr. Ary always relied on that and had a good relationship with the Cosmopshere and believed those promises would be fulfilled.”

The Cosmosphere employed Ary for about 26 years. In the suit, Thompson says Ary’s terms of employment, in part, were based on a percentage of revenues received from all sources, in order that Ary would have the incentive to maximize the Cosmosphere’s income.

That included bonuses from fundraisings. But, the suit alleges the Cosmosphere later asked Ary to forego those bonuses saying the compensation would be made up later in different ways, but weren’t.

Now, in the earlier criminal complaint, it’s the Cosmosphere claiming Ary stole space artifacts and sold them. But, this suit says it’s the space center in Hutchinson holding on to Ary’s possessions.

“We believe the Cosmosphere still has a number of items that still belong to Mr. Ary,” Thompson says.

It’s not chump change the suit is talking about. The suit claims, “The Cosmopshere currently has possessions of space artifacts, and various personal property belonging to Max Ary believed to have a value in excess of $300,000.”

Ary’s attorney wants the court to step into recover what belongs to Ary along with compensation they say Ary was to be paid as part of his retirement.

KAKE News tried to get comment from the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson on this. We couldn’t reach them for comment.