‘Hot felon’ Jeremy Meeks has been deported from the UK, DailyMail.com has exclusively learned – less than eight hours after he arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport.
Meeks, 32, of Stockton, California, was set to spend this week in the British capital where he had been due to shoot a series of magazine covers, according to his manager Jim Jordan.
But on arriving in London on Monday, Meeks was detained by UK border officials and banned from entering the country, despite claiming to have the correct paperwork and a letter from his parole officer.
Photos exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com show a dejected Meeks sitting in a Border Force holding area shortly before being bundled onto a US-bound plane.
He was flown back to the US, and landed in New York on Monday night.
Meeks’ wife and manager Jim Jordan, who were traveling with him, are currently holed up in a hotel in London.
Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, Jordan said: ‘We went into the UK and we went through immigration and they detained Jeremy.
‘He wasn’t arrested but they deported him out of the country. They wouldn’t let him come into the country. He is really upset. He was police-escorted onto the plane.’
A video shot by Meeks at the airport, exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com, shows the felon being escorted onto the flight accompanied by officials.
In it and pointing to his ‘escort’, Meeks said: ‘I’m sick of this s***. I’ve been denied. London don’t want me here having served my time. S*** is crazy.’
Meeks shot to fame in 2014 when the Stockton Police Department posted his mugshot on their website, following his arrest for street terrorism [gang activity] and a misdemeanor charge of resisting/obstructing justice.
The photo promptly went viral, with internet users dubbing him ‘the hottest convict ever’.
Since being released from jail in March 2016, Meeks has embarked on a career as a model and appeared on the catwalk at Phillip Plein during New York Fashion Week in February.
Meeks has also completed his first cover shoot – for British magazine Man About Town, with the issue featuring the felon due to launch this Thursday.
Jordan, who was with Meeks and his wife Melissa when they were stopped, said the trio had been flown to London to attend the launch party.
According to LA-based model agent, he and Meeks had approached the same immigration official but while his passport was stamped, his charge was ordered to one side.
Over the next eight hours, Meeks was interviewed, fingerprinted and searched before being told he could not enter the UK and escorted onto a New York bound American Airlines flight.
Jordan, who founded White Cross Talent Management, says Meeks had the correct paperwork, had obtained a work visa for the trip and was carrying a letter supplied by his parole officer. Jordan said: ‘We flew to London from Los Angeles this morning. We got there, and Jeremy and I walked up to the customs office together.
‘They stamped my passport. They looked at Jeremy’s passport and they said, could you guys go sit over there. So they put us in this sectioned off section and we were sitting there for an over an hour.
‘Then they came to me and asked if I could go through customs without Jeremy.’
According to Jordan, he and Meeks’ wife Melissa spent the next five hours in an airport restaurant waiting for the felon but were eventually told that he was being deported.
Jordan said: ‘I started getting calls from Jeremy, saying hey, they’re putting me in this room and there’s another guy in here and the guy has been here for about eight hours.
‘He said they were interviewing me, they’re going to do a search and they’re doing all these things.’
Jordan says he did not hear again from Meeks until 10.30pm EST when he landed in New York. The 33-year-old is now hoping to catch a flight to Los Angeles.
He told DailyMail.com: ‘Jeremy said [Border officials] did a four-hour interrogation, they took a s*** ton of pictures of him.
‘They strip-searched him, they fingerprinted him. They locked him in a small room for hours. They took his passport from him, they didn’t give him his passport back.
‘They basically said, you cannot come into the UK with no explanation. Jeremy is really sad, he’s just really sad.’
Jordan says he will visit the US Embassy in London to seek assistance and will also make sure Meeks’ wife can continue her trip to the UK.
He added: ‘[This was] the very first thing that Jeremy has done. It was his first time in London and he was all excited. It was his big debut.
‘He was on the right track for what we feel was going to be his new life. Now he’s very sad. Hopefully this is just a setback and he will be able to come back from this.’
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