Balloon boy charges ‘may come next week’

AUTHORITIES investigating the family accused of perpetrating the balloon boy hoax to promote a reality show said yesterday they don’t expect to bring possible charges until at least next week.

Larimer County sheriff’s spokeswoman Eloise Campanella said investigators don’t anticipate finishing their reports and presenting them to the district attorney’s office until next week. It will then be up to prosecutors to decide whether to file charges against Richard Heene or his wife, Mayumi.

Heene is accused of masterminding a hoax in which emergency services chased an out-of-control balloon in which his son was feared to be trapped. Heene’s lawyer David Lane said earlier yesterday he was willing to turn himself in over the alleged plot, which took in the world media on Thursday with cameras tracking the flying saucer-shaped vessel as it zipped across the Colorado skies.

Heene and his wife, Mayumi, face possible felony charges including conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and making a false report to police. The most serious counts carry a maximum sentence of six years’ imprisonment and a $500,000 (€335,000) fine.

In a further development it has emerged that Heene had discussed a publicity stunt involving the balloon months before it went up on Thursday.

In an email exchange obtained by gossip website Gawker.com, Heene discusses with associate Robert Thomas using the UFO inflatable to generate media interest in a reality TV show based on the Heene family.

“This will be the most significant UFO-related news event to take place since the Roswell crash of 1947, and the result will be a dramatic increase in local and national awareness about The Heene Family, our reality series, as well as the UFO phenomenon in general,” Heene’s show proposal posted to Gawker.com states.

Millions of viewers watched last week’s drama unfold on live TV. Over the course of two hours, police rescue teams and the US National Guard tracked the balloon in the belief that six-year-old Falcon Heene had crawled inside a compartment just before it took to the skies.

It travelled about 80 kilometres before floating to the ground. Fears that he may have fallen out shortly after take-off were allayed when he turned up a few hours later, apparently after hiding out because he thought his father would be angry. But suspicions were soon raised the incident was a stunt.

In an interview with CNN, Falcon was asked why he did not come out of hiding, to which he looked at his father and said: “You said we did this for a show.”

After the apparent admission, the family were re-interviewed by police.

On Sunday, Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderton said that he would be seeking charges against Richard and Mayumi Heene.