Posted on 09/14/2003 2:02:03 PM PDT by blakeb52
HEADLINE: From MTV to Leno, media vying for time with stowaway; After a week of interviews, crate rider has no comment
SOURCE: Dallas Morning News
BYLINE: Dave Levinthal
BODY: A bevy of television programs wants to make a celebrity out of the man who flew special delivery from New York to Dallas in an air cargo crate.
Sharon Osbourne, rocker Ozzy Osbourne's wife, called the Dallas County Sheriff's Department seeking an interview with Charles D. McKinley, 25, for her new television show, officials said. An MTV producer inquired about filming a reality television program at the Dallas County jail featuring Mr. McKinley.
Could Dallas yet play host to The Real World: Texas Big House? MTV did not return calls for comment.
Representatives from NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live and comedian Steve Harvey's radio show also clamored Thursday for talk time, Sheriff's Department officials said. Television stations from Japan and France have called, too. A reporter from Haftalik Magazine in Turkey attempted Thursday to score an interview with Mr. McKinley by e-mailing Dallas media.
After conducting more than a dozen jailhouse interviews Tuesday and Wednesday, Mr. McKinley went silent Thursday. He denied requests to talk after county sheriff's deputies transferred him from one holding center to another.
"Not right now," he told a jail guard.
Mr. McKinley - charged with "stowaway on aircraft," a federal misdemeanor - probably won't appear before Fort Worth-based federal Magistrate Judge Charles Bleil until next week, said Kathy Colvin, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office spokeswoman.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Schattman will prosecute the case.
Additional federal charges may follow, Ms. Colvin said. Mr. McKinley appeared in court Tuesday and pleaded guilty to violating probation for a June 1999 conviction for theft by check. He failed to report to probation officers for several months and did not pay restitution and other court-imposed fees, records indicate.
Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Administration are developing a plan to strengthen cockpit doors in cargo planes, as is already the case with passenger planes, TSA spokeswoman Andrea McCauley said. Some cargo planes do not use cockpit doors at all.
The Brooklyn, N.Y., resident traveled on Sept. 5 and 6 from the Bronx to his parents' home in DeSoto, crammed inside a wooden crate via Queens, N.Y., Newark, N.J., Buffalo, N.Y., Fort Wayne, Ind., and Dallas, according to the FBI. Mr. McKinley said he did it to visit his parents and save money.
E-mail dlevinthal@dallasnews.com
** BB52
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