Sheriff: "Looks like" charges coming against balloon family

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FORT COLLINS - Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden indicated criminal charges probably will be filed against one or both of the parents whose son was said to be aboard a wayward balloon.
- Earlier: Sheriff didn't think runaway balloon was hoax

Alderden spoke to a gathering of reporters to announce "significant progress" in the investigation after a second round of interviews with the family.

The sheriff will hold a news conference Sunday at 11 a.m.

The sheriff's office is getting a search warrant to search the Heene residence.

The sheriff indicated the likely charges are misdemeanors and no one in the family will be arrested.

Alderden said, given the seriousness of the incident, he is consulting with the Federal Aviation Administration and other federal agencies regarding potential federal charges.

The sheriff's office says Mr. and Mrs. Heene voluntarily came to their office to be interviewed by investigators Saturday afternoon.

Earlier Saturday, Richard Heene emerged from his home for what he promised reporters was a 'big announcement.'

"OK, I got people e-mailing me, calling me. They've got a lot of questions, and I don't know how to, quite frankly, answer any of them, other than - I've got a box, so, later on tonight, 7:30, I want to meet you guys again. I can look these questions over, and then I can answer them, OK?" Richard Heene, the boy's father, said.

He says his friends have been telling him they've heard a lot of different stories about his family on the news.

"I have no idea what the news is saying, I'm not a - I don't have cable," Heene said.

Heene did field one question from a reporter who asked him to clarify - once and for all - whether the balloon incident was a hoax.

"Absolutely no hoax, I want your questions in the box," Heene replied, and returned to his home, placing the box on his front porch.

The "announcement" drew boos and jeers from the throng of reporters.

"I love being manipulated," one reporter could be overheard commenting facetiously after Heene returned to his home.

Prior to the news conference, two apparent protestors were seen on the street in front of the house. One had a sign that read: "Put Balloon Boy on TV: America's Most Wanted." The other person, clad in a blue tie-dyed shirt, had a sign that said: "10/15/09 We will never forget," along with a hand-drawn caricature of the Jiffy-Pop-shaped balloon that captivated the world on Thursday as it floated across the state.

Following the news conference which amounted to nothing more than the cardboard question box, Eloise Campanella, a spokeswoman for the Larimer County Sheriff's Office, says plain-clothed investigators met with Heene to discuss the incident. No details were released about the meeting.

The Heene family is at the center of the saga after news crews from around the globe and law enforcement from around the state believed the man's son, Falcon Heene, was flying across the state in the wayward, helium-filled, saucer-shaped balloon. The boy later turned up hours later hiding in the family's attic above their garage.

"I'm going to have a press conference out here at, let's say, 10 a.m. Okay?" Richard Heene said outside his home around 5:30 a.m. on Saturday. "So it's a few more hours. So, I'd like to speak to everybody about a few things. Okay? So, it's a big announcement."

Comments made by Falcon during a CNN interview stoked the idea the family could have been planning the balloon incident as a hoax to get attention.

"You said we did this for a show," Falcon said to his parents during the interview, after his father asked why he didn't come down from the attic earlier.

Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden, who says he and his trained investigators believed the family's story, says the recent CNN comments have "raised everybody's level of skepticism" and he hopes to interview the entire family again on Saturday.

Despite receiving a groundswell of calls and e-mails about the incident, Alderden says they "have to operate on what we can prove as a fact and not what people want to be done."

A previous appearance on ABC's reality TV show "WifeSwap" has also raised speculation about the possibility the family just sought attention with the runaway balloon.