Child Star Joey Cramer Robbed a Bank Exactly 30 Years After His Famous Role in ‘Flight of the Navigator’
Child stars understand the struggle of maintaining their fame all through to adulthood. While some of these actors have an easy time transitioning into more mature roles, others have a hard time navigating adulthood and fame. Some child actors take to stripping down for photoshoots to shed their childhood personas and be taken seriously in Hollywood.
Former Disney child actor Joey Cramer enjoyed some level of success with the film Flight of The Navigator. However, the former star didn’t know that 30 years later, he would be convicted of a robbery in British Columbia.
Cramer was the main star in ‘flight of the navigator’
Flight of The Navigator was a 1986 film about a young boy called David Freeman. One night when walking home, David decides to take a shortcut through the woods to pick up his younger brother from their neighbor’s house. David accidentally falls into a ravine and is rendered unconscious. When he comes to, he realizes that he lost eight years of his life. The police are shocked that the boy doesn’t look a day over his original age from when he went missing. When David gets back home, his family is overjoyed to have him back.
They are, however, baffled as to how he hasn’t aged a single day despite having gone missing eight years before. Meanwhile, NASA captures a crashed alien spaceship and decides to conduct tests on the spaceship. Dr. Louise Faraday, who is in charge of conducting the experiments, asks David to come in so that they can assess his brain for answers as to how he hasn’t aged.
Claiming to have answers for the curious boy, David arrives at their facility. The researchers discovered that David’s mind has star charts and alien technical manuals covering up to the furthest end of the galaxy. They realize that David’s mind traveled 560 light-years away in 2.2 hours which explains why eight years passed on earth but not for the boy.
David receives a telepathic signal from the spaceship and follows it. He and the spaceship’s commander Max escape the NASA facility and set out for Phaeton. After some studies on David, Max returns David to his timeline, and they part ways.
Cramer began having run-ins with authorities later on in life
After his career began declining in the ’90s, Cramer went back to Canada and found a job at a small sporting goods store. In 2008 his legal troubles began when he was arrested and prosecuted for carelessly storing a gun. He received three-month probation for the misdemeanor, but later in the year, he was arrested for possessing narcotics with the intent to traffic.
For this, he received six months probation. In 2010 Cramer was fined for drinking alcohol in public, and in 2011 he was arrested for threatening the public with a weapon whereby he received 30 days jail time. Later that year, he got convicted again for changing the names on checks and cashing the forged check.
Cramer got arrested in connection with a bank robbery
In August 2016, news broke of a bank robbery in British Columbia. The police stated that a man dressed in disguise was spotted leaving a bank with an undisclosed amount of money. The police continued that the man wearing a bandanna, sunglasses, a wig of unkempt hair, and a dark jacket entered the bank, said he demanded money and fled on foot. The Guardian reported that some officers later identified the man as the former child star.
Cramer was charged with robbery and disguise with intent to commit a criminal offense. Cramer isn’t the only child star who had a few run-ins with the law. According to Cleveland 19, Family Ties star Brian Bonsall was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend in 2007 and also in 2009 for hitting a friend with a stool. Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin has also had problems with the law for substance possession.
