Tag: balloon boy

Balloon Boy parents Richard and Mayumi Heene were each sentenced to stints in the county jail today as conditions of probation for perpetuating the hoax that transfixed the nation a few months ago. (In Colorado, a defendant can be sentenced to up to 90 in days as a condition of probation for a felony and 60 days for a misdemeanor.)

Richard Heene, who last month pleaded guilty to a felony charge of attempting to influence a public servant, will have to serve 30 days of the sentence full-time in the Larimer County jail, with the remaining 60 days served on work-release. Larimer County Court Judge Stephen Schapanski said Heene would start serving the jail sentence on Jan. 11. "I will delay this until after the holiday in fairness mostly to his children,"

Mayumi Heene, who helped hatch the scheme and who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of false reporting, was sentenced to 20 days of jail, to be served through a program that allows her to perform jail-supervised community service a couple days a week and return home at night.

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Richard and Mayumi Heene, parents of "the Balloon Boy" will plead guilty in exchange for probation. Mrs. Heene will plead to a misdemeanor and Mr. Heene to a felony.

Mr. Heene's lawyer, David Lane, issued this press release explaining that a felony would have resulted in Mrs. Heene's deportation to Japan and the prosecutors required a package deal. From his statement:

Mayumi Heene is a citizen of Japan. As such, any felony conviction or certain misdemeanors would result in her deportation, even though her husband and children are Americans. Because Mayumi, while being questioned by law enforcement made certain statements which the prosecutor could use against her to possibly obtain a felony conviction and thus, her deportation by the federal government, she is avoiding that possibility with this plea. Unfortunately, the prosecutors insisted upon a package deal where Richard would have to fall on his sword and take a felony plea despite the fact that he made no incriminating statements to law enforcement and Mayumi’s statements could not be used against him.

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The Sheriff of Larimer County, CO has released the search warrant documents in the Balloon Boy case, including the Affidavit for the Warrant and the return showing what was seized, to the public. No charges have yet been filed in the case.

The documents are available here. According to the Affidavit, Mrs. Heene told authorities on Oct. 17th that the incident was a hoax that she and her husband devised two weeks earlier; they told the kids to lie; they knew 6 year old Falcon was hiding in the house; and they did it to make the family more marketable.

Mr. Heene's attorney, David Lane, responds: [More...]

For those still following the Balloon Boy case, here's the 911 call.

There is an issue worth discussing about the case: Is it okay for law enforcement to lie to the media?

If you are still searching for a Halloween costume, Balloon Boy ones are now available.

I missed the balloon boy saga that apparently took over the cable tv airwaves last week. Not having seen the coverage, I can't quite grasp why there are still 9,497 articles on Google News about it.

Authorities now think it was a hoax and are going to charge the parents with a potpourri of crimes. Coming in after the fact, here's what seem to me to be the salient points: [More..]