Affidavit: Mom admitted balloon saga was hoax

FORT COLLINS - Mayumi Heene told a Larimer County Sheriff's investigator she and her husband lied to authorities when they reported that their 6-year-old son was aboard a balloon released from the family's backyard.

On Saturday, Mayumi Heene told investigator Robert Heffernan that she and her husband, Richard, had lied to authorities on Oct. 15. She admitted the release of the flying saucer from their Fort Collins Home was an intentional hoax.

Mayumi Heene said she and her husband knew all along that 6-year-old Falcon was hiding in their home. The motive for the fabricated story was to make the Heene family more marketable for future media interest.

Mayumi Heene said she and Richard Heene had devised the hoax two weeks before the launch and that the experimental flying saucer was made specifically to carry out the hoax. Mayumi Heene also said that she and her husband had told their three children to lie to authorities and the media.

"The motive for the fabricated story was to make the Heene family more marketable for future media interest," Heffernan wrote in his report. "Mayumi described that she and Richard Heene devised this hoax approximately two weeks earlier. The experimental flying saucer was specifically made to carry out this hoax."

Richard Heene's attorney David Lane and Mayumi Heene's attorney Lee Christian both have not seen the affidavit, which was made available to the public Friday through the Larimer County courthouse.

"The fact that they're releasing an affidavit before an arrest is made - I've never seen that before," Lane said in a phone interview. "It's further proof of what that sheriff will do to further his own agenda and try to make it unfair to the Heenes."

"The Heenes haven't even seen it," Lane said.

Lane said it is typically standard practice to keep search warrant documents sealed until an arrest is made in a case.

"We still maintain if they are going to be arrested, we will turn them in," Lane said of the Heene family. "This is just more grandstanding by the sheriff."

Lane, told the Associated Press the "allegations are cheap" and that he's waiting to see the evidence. Mayumi Heene's lawyer was traveling and didn't immediately respond to messages left with his office.

9NEWS Legal Analyst Scott Robinson says Mayumi Heene's confession can be used against her in court, but not against her husband.

"If Richard Heene goes to trial he confession nor her testimony can be used against him if he invokes the privilige that spouses have," Robinson said.

Investigators say they will recommend criminal charges against the parents.

Court documents also say computers, video cameras, hard drives and a picture of a flying saucer were seized during a search of the Heene home.

The documents didn't say what investigators found on the cameras or the electronic and paper files they took.

The documents say authorities also took a flight itinerary, but they don't say who the passenger was or whether the flight had taken place.

Click here to read the full affidavit.