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Lawyer: US balloon boy parents to plead guilty
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-11-13 02:19 The Heenes are amateur storm chasers and had twice appeared on the ABC reality show "Wife Swap." Former business partners said Richard Heene wanted a show of his own called "The Science Detectives" or "The Psyience Detectives." On October 17, deputies questioned both parents separately. Richard Heene, 48, adamantly denied the saga was a publicity stunt. But Mayumi Heene, 45, admitted the incident was a hoax, according to a search warrant affidavit. According to the document, Mayumi Heene told an investigator the couple devised the hoax two weeks before the flight "to make the Heene family more marketable for future media interest" and that they built the balloon specifically for that purpose. Mayumi also said she and her husband had instructed their three children to lie to authorities and the media, the affidavit said. At the time, Lane dismissed the alleged statement as hearsay and claimed it could only be used against Mayumi Heene, not her husband, whom Lane insisted had made no incriminating statements to authorities. Spouses generally can't be forced to testify against each other partly because of laws that extend privilege to conversations between husbands and wives, similar to those protecting lawyers from talking about their discussions with a client. Lane said Thursday that Mayumi Heene's statements could have been used to convict her but couldn't have been used against her husband because of marital privilege, which can keep a person's spouse from testifying against him or her. He said prosecutors have acknowledged their case against Richard Heene had problems. "I'd love to take Richard's case to trial," he said.
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