Meeks’ crew killed my son but now he shows off his gang tattoos on catwalk & lives the high life
FURY AT ‘HOT FELON’ MODEL’ S VIOLENT PAST
Eric Castillo never wanted to shoot anyone, he just wanted to shoot hoops. But the 15-year-old was gunned down by gangsters trying to expand their turf. Eric was shot three times, sacrificing himself to push his girlfriend out of the hail of bullets.
He was killed by the North Side Gangster Crips – the California gang that counts “hot felon” Jeremy Meeks, 33, as a member, according to police.
Since his mugshot went viral in 2014, jailbird Meeks has become a star model.
Months after being released in February last year, he was enjoying his newfound fame – partying with the likes of Paris Hilton and Nicki Minaj and holidaying this week with Topshop heiress Chloe Green aboard her billionaire father Sir Philip Green’s yacht.
For Eric’s mother, Carmela, the most sickening moment of all was seeing Meeks strut bare-chested down the catwalk for designer Philipp Plein – wearing his gangland tattoos like a badge of honour. To her, it’s an insult.
Carmela, 48, calls his modelling career “disgusting”, raging: “I don’t understand why this man seems to be getting rewarded. It makes me very angry.
“Is he really out of the gang life? How do we know?”
Meeks has said he is not completely free of his gangland past, saying only he has quit the gang “to a certain extent”.
The teardrop tattoo, the symbol on his neck and the “Crips” on his arm just remind Carmela that her son will never have the same opportunities as him.
The NSGC were an active gang in Stockton – an area north of Los Angeles with up to 70 gangland shootings a year.
Carmela remembers her son was playing basketball at home: “The gang came in like a Western – walking in a line and shooting. My son was in the driveway, shooting hoops. Eric pushed his girlfriend out the way and got shot three times – in his temple, his abdomen, and the foot. He died instantly.”
The killing happened in 2004. David Lewis, 17, was found guilty of murder. He was sentenced to 142 years and four months in jail.
Mugshots show Meeks was on the police radar going back to 2002, previously serving two years in state prison for grand theft auto in the Noughties, before he was sentenced to 27 months in 2014 for a firearms offence. The District Attorney’s Office say he was a documented member of North Side Gangster Crips.
Officer Joseph Silva remembers Meeks well and brands him “one of the most violent criminals in the Stockton area”.
Silva says: “If we think we have someone in a gang who can turn their life around we refer them to our Peacekeeper workers and they help them. I don’t believe he did do the program. I think once he got released he went right into his modelling.”
Jail provided an unlikely springboard for Meeks’ catwalk career. Women around the world swooned over his “hot” mugshot when it went viral. His life of crime on the mean streets of LA could not be further from the pampered lifestyle Chloe Green enjoyed as a child, thanks to her father, Sir Philip Green, and his estimated £5.1billion fortune. Yet the pair were photographed snuggling up and smooching aboard a 180ft superyacht as they cruised the Med off Turkey last week. The snaps sparked outrage – especially as Meeks is married and Chloe was supposedly dating Robert Cavalli,
son of fashion designer Roberto. The pair seemed to revel in the attention. Chloe posted more pictures of herself with Meeks on Instagram and posted: “Just the Beginning... We appreciate all the love and the hate.”
Meeks, however, may not have appreciated his wife’s outrage when he arrived home with a pile of luggage on Monday. He was seen arguing with Melissa on the doorstep of the home in Stockton which they share with their three children. Meeks and Melissa, 38, have been married for eight years and have one boy, six, as well as a daughter and son from Melissa’s previous relationship. Melissa insists she is still “legally married” to Meeks but the couple spent Tuesday celebrating Independence Day apart. Meeks has since removed all pictures of him with Melissa from his Instagram page, while Chloe has deleted her account.
Sources say Green’s fury about his daughter’s dalliance is outweighed by his concern for her safety – with good reason.
Those living in LA know all too well how dangerous Crips gangsters can be. Silva says: “It’s mostly shootings and street robberies.” But he warned human trafficking is also becoming more popular. “The women are often local,” he says. “They will be put up in hotels along the freeway – we had teenagers as well as women in their 20s. The gangs then advertise them on the internet.”
Another person infuriated by Meeks’ “glamorisation” is San Joaquin District Attorney Janet Smith. She says: “This fascithe nation with someone who might be a goodlooking criminal, when I think about the people who have lost their lives or a loved one to gang violence, it is offensive. We are fighting a serious war here. We have children who are being killed in playgrounds.”
Speaking about his gang past, Meeks said this week: “You can quit, and to a certain extent I have, I am very extremely non-active.
“Most of my tattoos are from my past, which I am trying to shed and remove.”
A spokesman for Philipp Plein said: “We are very sorry for the terrible tragedy that the family of a slain Stockton youth has suffered. We in no way are celebrating any sort of criminal activity, however we do support a person who has paid his debt to society and is making every effort to turn his life around.”
You can quit and, to a certain extent, I have. I am non-active JEREMY MEEKS ON HIS MEMBERSHIP OF LA GANG