Balloon Boy parents Richard and Mayumi Heene sentenced to time in jail, will be unable to profit from the stunt for four years

Ballon Boy

The Heene family, who famously duped the media into believing their son was trapped in a giant Jiffypopesque helium balloon floating in the sky, were fined $47,000 and sentenced to jail time. Richard Heene, who plead guilty to attempting to influence a public servant, a felony, received a sentence of 90 days in jail. Mayumi Heene received 20 days jail time for her misdemeanor charge of false reporting to authorities.

Richard Heene will serve his time first, followed by Mayumi so at least one parent can be home to take care of the children.

Probably the worst kicker for the fame-seeking family is that the court ordered that they will be unable to profit from their news-making hoax for four years. That means we’ll be sure to see a book come out around 2014-5ish.

The entire world watched on Oct. 15 for hours as T.V. crews tracked the balloon gliding across the sky. Everyone was pretty scared that 6-year-old Falcon Heene had fallen to his death because it didn’t look like there was a boy in that balloon. When the aircraft finally touched down and rescue workers hacked into it, they didn’t find a little boy. Not too long after, the Heenes, who had found the spotlight before on two episodes of Wife Swap and were shopping around for more reality tv gigs, reported they had found their son in the attic.

That very evening the jig was up when Falcon let it slip on Larry King Live that he had stayed hidden because it was “for the show.”