[FeeFee]

Feds lower boom on crate man



By TRACIE POWELL in Dallas
and DAVE GOLDINER in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

For a while, it was just a crazy stunt. Now, it's a crime.
Charles McKinley, the homesick man who shipped himself to Texas from the Bronx in a crate, was charged yesterday with being a stowaway on a plane.

After spending most of the afternoon being quizzed in a Dallas jail, McKinley was expected to be taken into federal custody. He faces up to a year in prison.

"I guess I'm going to have to get a lawyer," McKinley, 25, told the Daily News. "If anyone knows a good attorney, send him my way."

As McKinley prepared to face the music, he struggled again to explain why he crawled into a small crate for a 1,500-mile journey. "I truly felt like I hit rock bottom in New York," he said. "I had to get out of there."

Friends tried to make sense of his wacky trek, which started when a friend nailed him in and ended with his delivery to his parents' home.

"I understand he's homesick and wants to go home, but ... wow," said Troy Felder of the Bronx, who occasionally let McKinley live with him.

Echoing other acquaintances, Felder called McKinley a puzzle — a pleasant person who left a $400 phone bill and spun lies.

McKinley said he was a bank loan officer, but he never went to work in the morning and left altogether for days at a time.

Paul Parham, another friend, also said McKinley told tales of rich relatives and big-money jobs but struggled to find a place to stay. "He's been telling people too many lies," said Parham, 20, of Manhattan. "I couldn't handle it."

McKinley said he called in the shipping order to UPS himself and was sealed in by another friend he said was also named Paul Parham. He gave a Bronx address and waited in the crate for the deliveryman.

Authorities also were investigating how McKinley eluded security checks.

"It certainly shows that we have more work to do on cargo security," said Homeland Security Department official Asa Hutchinson.

"This situation could have led to disaster," added Jon Safley, president of the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations.