On Tuesday, the Washington D.C. Circuit affirmed a ruling for the estate of the late Gerard Cafesjian to get back properties he purchased for the planned Armenian Genocide museum that never got off the ground, this according to the Courthouse News Service.

 The Armenian Assembly of America joined several other organizations 20 years ago to create an Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial (AGM&M) in Washington D.C.

The Armenian Assembly and others purchased a historic building, the National Bank of Washington building at 14th and G Streets, just blocks from the White House. Gerard Cafesjian also purchased the buildings adjacent to the Bank Building to expand the museum effort.

Eventually irreconcilable differences arose between major donor Cafesjian and one of the Assembly's founders, Hirair Hovnanian.

This split entered the courts when both parties laid claim to the museum-related properties Cafesjian purchased, and the Assembly accused Cafesjian of mismanaging the project.

There is no support for the assembly's view that equity should not permit Cafesjian to benefit from AGM&M's failure to meet its deadline "because Cafesjian's actions were the very reason AGM&M could not develop the museum by the end of 2010," according to the ruling.

 "As the District Court interpreted the evidence below, it was the 'lack of funding' that caused AGM&M to put the brakes on the museum project, 'and the record [did] not clearly show that any actions by Cafesjian ... caused AGM&M to lose donors,'" Judge Robert Wilkins wrote for the three-judge panel.

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