Robert Thomas, who was paid by Gawker.com for a story headlined "I Helped Richard Heene Plan A Balloon Hoax", is now on Larimer County (Colo.) Sheriff Jim Alderden's list of folks he wants to speak to about the so-called balloon boy saga.

In the Gawker piece, Thomas claims that Heene talked about staging some sort of UFO stunt using a weather balloon. Thomas professes to be a researcher and college student who got to know Heene this year.

Meanwhile, the attorney who now represents the Heene family says that parents Richard and Mayumi are willing to turn themselves in if the sheriff follows through on his plan to charge them with several felonies and misdemeanors for allegedly cooking up a hoax that had the nation watching on Thursday as a weather balloon floated above Colorado — supposedly carrying six-year-old Falcon Heene with it. The boy was not on board. Heene family attorney David Lane says his clients maintain they're innocent.

Here's the conversation that Lane had with Matt Lauer this morning on NBC's The Today Show: