Jeremy Ray Meeks—aka #prisonbae, as he is known on Twitter—was arrested on June 18 along with four other men during a gang sweep. Meeks was sent to California's San Joaquin County Jail. Last week his mug shot was posted on a police department's Facebook page. The women of the Internets went nuts. On Friday Meeks was arraigned, and his family and friends weren't too excited about all the notoriety his mug shot has gained since his arrest.
"It's ridiculous," friend Rajanique Davis told CBS Sacramento. "People are making jokes when this is not funny at all."
The news station notes that while many women have been fawning over the photo of Meeks, he is actually a happily married man, and that the fuss caused by his chiseled jaw and blue eyes has made his wife so uncomfortable that she didn't attend the arraignment.
"I wouldn't be surprised if you don't see her at all in the cameras, because she's upset," Simone Johnson a friend of Meeks told the news station. "She's furious. Her man is in there, and people are taking it as a joke, thinking it's funny, talking about his looks, saying all kinds of crazy things."
Meeks' younger brother, Bryan Varela, told CBS that he believes his brother is innocent and is a changed man after serving two years in prison for grand theft.
"He's a man who learns from his mistakes," Varela told the news station. "With his past history, he got out of being incarcerated and put his mind on focus to his family and started doing what he had to do, living the dream that he always wanted."
Read more at CBS Sacramento.