2:23pm UK, Friday January 08, 2010

Katie Cassidy, Sky News Online

The father of America’s so-called Balloon Boy has maintained the stunt was not staged – despite pleading guilty to perpetrating a hoax.

Richard and Mayumi Heene pleaded guilty to the balloon hoax

Richard Heene claimed he made the admission to save his wife, Mayumi, from being deported to Japan.

The husband and wife were sentenced in November over the hoax, in which they falsely reported their six-year-old son Falcon was trapped in a home-made balloon that had suddenly floated away from their home.

The Heenes were charged with attempting to influence a public servant and making a false report to authorities.

Prosecutors accused the couple of wanting publicity for a reality TV programme.

After the Heenes made frantic calls to a TV station and 911, millions watched as media and National Guard helicopters tracked the silver contraption over eastern Colorado.

When the balloon finally came down in a farm field, there was no sign of the boy.

Later, the relieved-looking couple reported Falcon had been hiding in their garage the whole time.

However, suspicions were aroused when in an interview with CNN’s Larry King on the same day as the incident, Falcon said to his father: “You guys said we did this for the show.”

Mr Heene was due to begin his 90-day jail sentence on Monday.

Mrs Heene will begin her 20-day prison sentence after her husband’s ends, so their children will have a parent to care for them.

Again speaking to Larry King, Mr Heene said he had to plead guilty to “save my family and my wife”.

“We had applied years ago for some paperwork. Things got fouled up,” he said in the interview, due to air in the US on Friday.

“We had to reapply so she should have been an American citizen by now, but anyway. I can’t break up my family.”

He denied the incident was a stunt and at the time he had believed Falcon was in the balloon.

Richard Heene speaks to CNN’s Larry King

“We had searched the house high and low,” he said.

“I knew he was in the craft when I made the call… In my mind… there was no other place because I visualised him, I yelled at him to not go in.”

Asked about his son’s comments in their last interview, Mr Heene said Falcon was just confused.

“First off, let’s take into consideration he’s only been speaking English and just learned three and a half years prior to that. He’s six years old during this interview,” he said.

“Number two, I had gotten back into the house after… talking to the press out in front of my house. I had opened the garage door to get my family back inside away from these guys.

“I asked Falcon after that, I asked him: ‘Why did you say that? What are you talking about?

“He said a Japanese cameraman… asked him to show him how he got into the attic for his TV show. That’s why Falcon answered that.”