Reckless Ben and the $200,000 Lego Collection: A Case Study on Why We Need Lawyers

Act 1: The Big Lego Heist

Let’s go back to the beginning. Around the late 1990s to early 2000s, Ed Mansell, started what would come to be the largest collection of Lego Star Wars sets in the world. Over the next 10-15 years he accumulated an extensive collection of Lego with the intention of later selling these well-preserved, sealed Lego sets for his grandchildren’s college fund. And in February of 2023, his son, Bryan Mansell finally decided to turn these sealed sets into profits when his father’s health started to decline. So, he turned to their local Bricks & Minifigs, located in Salem, Oregon, owned by Chrystal and Benjamin Gorman and signed a consignment agreement.

Here’s how it worked: Bryan Mansell and his father, Ed Mansell, remained the rightful owners of the extensive Lego collection. The Gormans were basically hired to help him sell his collection while getting a cut from every sale, meaning that Bryan was going to get a cut from every sale as well. Everything seemed to be going well; the sets were being sold, both parties were getting their profits, and the contract was abided by.

However, on November 14th, 2024, everything went wrong. A man by the name of Brandan Best came into the store that night with no prior notice and kicked the Gormans out, claiming that they would be taking over the Salem location. Best owned another Bricks & Minifigs location in Eugene, Oregon with partner, Josh Johnson. Amidst this messy handover, at least $20,000 worth of Lego got lost in translation. Bricks & Minifigs corporate came out with a press statement that only small sets with values ranging between $2,000 to $5,000 were discovered in the store with a possible relation to Mansell… leaving the rest of us wondering, where in the world did these Lego go? How did $200,000 disappear into thin air? This is exactly what a YouTuber who goes by the online alias of Reckless Ben sought to figure out.

Act 2: The YouTuber Intervention; Missing Lego Scandal Goes Viral

On May 22, 2026, Reckless Ben published the video “I tracked down the thief who stole $200,000 of Lego” to YouTube, which went viral and garnered over 5 million views within the past two weeks. By that point, Reckless Ben, real name Benjamin Paul Schneider, had been investigating the case and helping Bryan Mansell recover his collection for over a year. Many other YouTube channels such as LegalEagle and Coffeezilla have picked up the scandal and made content on it as well. There are millions of people scrutinizing Bricks & Minifigs new CEO, Ammon McNeff, former Salem, Oregon franchise owners, Chrystal and Ben Gormon, American Fork Police Department of Utah, and Reckless Ben. Let’s go through the different narratives.

As of now, the public perception of Bricks & Minifigs corporate is worsening as the situation unfolds. First and foremost, the numbers are not adding up, and they are not handing over the sales tickets to anyone, even at the request of Chrystal and Benjamin Gorman who they were primarily accusing as the culprits. In any case, Bricks & Minifigs corporate was generally non-cooperative leading many to speculate against them. Additionally, in Coffeezilla’s investigation video titled “I Found The $200,000 Missing Lego,” they denied the presence of a U-Haul truck on the day of the store takeover, but when proven wrong, they went back on their word and coughed up a story to explain the U-Haul’s presence. Audiences pointed out the hypocrisy in all of this. One commenter joked: “If not U-Haul, why U-Haul shaped?”

Additionally, Chrystal and Benjamin Gorman continue to say that there are possibly mistakes or missing information in the spreadsheet tracking Mansell’s collection, so if they had the sales tickets, which are currently in corporate’s hands, they would be able to clear up the gaps. Also, on November 14th, 2024, the night of the franchise takeover, Chrystal said to Brandon Best that she needed to gather her sales tickets to pay Bryan. Brandon responded the best he could saying, “Ultimately, Chrystal, that’s a business thing and not necessarily yours. Brandon will [...] because he’s taking over the business, [take] on all that consignment.” Still, corporate claims to not have been aware prior to or directly after the takeover about Bryan Mansell’s collection.

In the following days, Bryan Mansell caught wind of this messy store takeover and went into the store asking for his sets back. The new owners denied him and gave the excuse that they were not aware of any consignment. Mansell then went to the police to file a report, but they labeled the situation a civil matter. This is where the YouTuber Reckless Ben comes into the picture. Desperate for any kind of help, Mansell emailed his situation to Ben around last March because Ben had made a community post asking for possible situations to investigate for content. In the last week or so, he has started posting YouTube videos on the situation, and it went viral. Everyone is demanding that the corporation hand back the missing Lego and criticizing the corruption of the American Fork Police Department, a police department for a city in Utah.

If you’re confused… Don’t worry. First, Reckless Ben was in Utah because that’s where his investigations of the new franchise owners of the Salem Bricks & Minifigs location, Brandon Best and Josh Johnson, led him. His main goal in Utah was to serve lawsuit papers to the two franchise owners. Second, in his attempt to serve these papers, he has had multiple encounters with the American Fork Police Department. Ben and his team got pulled over multiple times, approached in their vehicle, arrested, and even swatted by this police department.

Act 3: Where Does This Leave Us?

The situation continues to unfold. Reckless Ben is now being charged in Utah for stalking and targeted residential picketing. There was some talk about how he was planning on representing himself in court, but it appears that he has now gained legal representation following the first hearing. Mansell has still not gotten his sets back, and corporate still refuses to give the Gormans access to sales tickets. Though the former franchise owners Brandon Best and Josh Johnson were let go from Bricks & Minifigs. The smaller company Minifigs.me has split off from the corporation despite it being a costly decision in which they will lose one of their biggest business partners. Audiences online have been extremely supportive of this decision and are applauding the owners of Minifigs.me, Nick and Caroline.

Moreover, the CEO and co-founder of Patreon, Jack Conte, has just come out denying the request from Bricks & Minifigs to take Reckless Ben’s Patreon page down. Conte stated, “After an extensive review and investigation by Patreon’s trust and safety team, we have in fact, unfortunately, determined that Bricks & Minifigs can stuff it. [...] And if [they] don’t like that, they can sue us.” Throughout this entire scandal, almost nobody has been siding with Bricks & Minifigs corporate. Still, it is important to note that your local Bricks & Minifigs most likely has nothing to do with this situation and is probably owned locally as a franchise.

Act 4: Final Thoughts

One of the biggest takeaways viewers mentioned throughout this situation is how they wish law enforcement approached actual stalking and assault cases with this “level of zeal.” This brought a lot of viewers back to the American Fork Police Department’s corruption, emphasizing their out of line priorities and overall stupidity. Additionally, people noted how many big corporations steal from ordinary people and smaller businesses all the time through legal loopholes, but none have been this viral. So, the amount of awareness to these practices that the Bricks & Minifigs situation has brought is an eye-opener for many.

If you’re interested, many YouTube channels like LegalEagle, penguinz0, and Reckless Ben himself have been continuously giving updates on the situation and may continue to do so as the situation progresses.