AN upstate couple has joined the “Balloon Boy” hoaxsters in the “Wife Swap” Hall of Shame.
Ralph and Karen Guastaferro of Amherst, who appeared on “Wife Swap” in January 2008, have pleaded guilty to felony charges.
Ralph, 62, admitted to laundering $1.2 million in a Canadian telemarketing scheme. Karen, 55, admitted to failing to declare wages for half the workers at the couples’ glass-tinting shop over a four-year period, according to The Buffalo News.
Ralph faces 46 to 57 months in the slammer, while Karen faces a sentence of up to 16 months.
In their “Wife Swap” episode, Karen moved in with a religious Indiana couple. Angie Boss, the wife from Indiana, went to live with Ralph and the Guastaferros’ daughter, Alicia — who came across as spoiled and pampered.
“Balloon Boy” schemers and former “Wife Swap” contestants Richard and Mayumi Heene pleaded guilty to last month’s stunt in which they claimed their 6-year-old son, Falcon, was trapped in a hot-air balloon that had accidentally taken off from their Colorado backyard.