A child actor famous for his role in a "Star Wars" prequel was arrested last week after leading South Carolina police on a 25-mile high-speed chase, Colleton County Sheriff's Sgt. Kyle Strickland told NBC News on Sunday.
Strickland identified the actor as Jake Broadbent, 26, formerly known as Jake Lloyd, who played Anakin Skywalker in "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace." According to his IMDB profile, Broadbent's last film was in 2005.
Strickland said the chase began after the sheriff's office was alerted to a reckless driver about 2 p.m. ET. The driver was Broadbent, and when a deputy followed him, he speeded away. "He starts passing cars on the double yellow line," Strickland said. "He's going head on into oncoming traffic."
Deputies followed Broadbent onto Interstate 95, where he was driving "upwards of 100 miles per hour," Strickland said. Broadbent drove through a grassy median, where he crashed through an old fence, then onto a frontage road, Strickland said. At a dead end, when the pavement became a logging road overgrown with trees, Broadbent kept driving, Strickland said.
"He bounced off a bunch of them like a pinball machine," he said.
Strickland said it was unclear why Broadbent was in South Carolina — his address is in Colorado — or why he tried to evade police. "He didn't appear to be on drugs or intoxicated," Strickland said.
Broadbent remained in the Colleton County Detention Center, where he was being held Sunday in lieu of $10,700 bond on charges of resisting arrest, reckless driving, driving without a license and failure to stop.
