Investigation After the incident, several news agencies began questioning whether it was a hoax.
Editor & Publisher pointed out that "few had raised the issue of whether such a balloon could even lift off with a kid inside and then float the way it did" during the flight. The police initially said it did not appear to be a hoax, but when Falcon and his family were being interviewed later in the day by
Wolf Blitzer on
CNN's
Larry King Live he asked Falcon, "Why did you not come out of the garage?" After his parents repeated the question, he responded, "You guys said that, um, we did this for the show." Falcon's answers prompted the sheriff's office to pursue further investigations as to whether the incident was part of a publicity stunt. On October 16, Alderden said that "the suggestion that the boy[...] was coached to hide seems inconceivable." Researcher Robert Thomas sold a story to
Gawker alleging that he had helped plan a publicity stunt involving a weather balloon and investigators expressed a desire to interview him. Larimer County Sheriff's officials had consulted a
Colorado State University physics professor, Brian Jones, who initially determined, based on the dimensions provided by Richard Heene, that the balloon could plausibly lift off with a boy of Falcon's reported size (). However, when authorities later measured the balloon, they concluded it was not large enough to lift the child. Richard Heene's lawyer, David Lane, announced on October 19 that Richard and Mayumi Heene would surrender to police as soon as charges were filed, and plead not guilty. Throughout the Balloon boy hoax investigation, the couple had a list of potential fines and penalties before the sentencing began. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) proposed a fine of $11,000
USD for the "launching of an unauthorized aircraft." An FAA spokesman, Mike Fergus, later revealed that they had completed their investigation, but no details were released after the investigation. The couple also had proposed fines for Richard Heene for committing a class 4 felony; he could have received two to six years in prison and fines between $2,000 to $500,000. Mayumi Heene was also facing a potential penalty; by committing a class 3 misdemeanor, she could receive up to six months in prison and a fine ranging from $50 to $750. According to the supporting
affidavit that law enforcement submitted with their application for a
search warrant, Mayumi later admitted that she "knew all along that Falcon was hiding in the residence." The affidavit alleges that the couple planned the hoax about two weeks before releasing the balloon on October 15 and "instructed their three children to lie to authorities as well as the media regarding this hoax", for the purpose of making the family "more marketable for future media interests."
Guilty plea Richard Heene's attorney announced on November 12, 2009, that both parents intended to plead guilty to the charges filed against them, for which the prosecutor would recommend probation. The attorney's statement said that the threat of deportation of his wife, Mayumi Heene, who is a Japanese citizen, was a major factor in the plea negotiations. On November 13, Richard Heene pleaded guilty to a felony charge of attempting to influence a public servant. Mayumi Heene did not appear with him, but still faced a misdemeanor charge of false reporting to authorities. On December 23, 2009, a judge sentenced Richard Heene to 90 days in jail and 100 hours of community service. He was also ordered to write a formal apology to the agencies that searched for Falcon. Mayumi Heene was sentenced to 20 days in jail, to be served through jail-supervised community service for two days a week. Mayumi was also allowed to begin her sentence after her husband's ended in order to ensure her children would be cared for, and the Heenes were also banned from receiving any profits from the hoax for several years. Richard Heene was also ordered to pay $36,000 in restitution.
Post-conviction developments On January 7, 2010, Richard Heene began to claim in media interviews that he only pleaded guilty to prevent his wife's potential deportation. In a 2015 interview with
Today, Heene repeated the claim that the incident was not a hoax. In a 2019 interview with ABC News, the Heene family continued to maintain that the incident was not a hoax, with Mayumi Heene claiming to have confessed out of fear of deportation. In an interview with the family for
5280, Mayumi brought forth handwritten notes for her attorney recounting the days preceding the event. In them, she details the original plan was to have Falcon hide in the basement, where the family would discover him and call off the search. However, Falcon instead hid in the attic above the garage, creating genuine confusion and genuine tearfulness at their reunion. When
5280 confronted Richard about the existence of the notes, he reacted angrily towards Mayumi, during which she admitted to fabricating the story in the handwritten notes to save her family's reputation. ==Media attention==