The American Fork Police Department has publicly denied bias after Ben Schneider, better known to streaming fans as Reckless Ben, was jailed in Utah County on stalking, criminal trespass, targeted residential picketing and disorderly conduct charges tied to a bitter LEGO dispute.
The statement lands now because Schneider has been making corruption claims while the case around the alleged $200,000 Star Wars LEGO collection keeps moving toward court. Police said officers are strictly investigating potential illegal acts, are not currently seeking him and have no active warrants for him.
That response puts the department squarely in the middle of a fight that started far from Utah. Bryan Mansell and his 83-year-old father, Eric, placed 780 unopened sets and 1,200 rare figures on consignment in 2023 at a Bricks & Minifigs franchise in Salem, Oregon, and one Cloud City set in the collection was valued at more than $10,000. After the Salem shop was repossessed over a $175,000 debt, corporate managers changed the locks and installed Joshua Johnson and Brandon Best, while the company denied any wrongdoing or theft.
Schneider later became a vocal figure in the dispute, posting confrontational videos from the store, hanging a fake closure banner on the storefront and traveling to the private Utah homes of Johnson and Best to serve legal papers. In recent public comments, he alleged officers pulled his car over for a bogus two-hour drug search and said police targeted him because the business owners belong to the same church.
Bricks & Minifigs has described the matter as a coordinated, viral extortion campaign, and its lawyers have said Law might have secretly sold off the items herself without reimbursing the family. The company also said it tracked down a tiny portion of bricks worth between $2,000 and $5,000 that could possibly be tied to the inventory, but the Mansell family refused to take them back.
The case now turns on what prosecutors can prove about Schneider’s conduct and how much of the LEGO haul can still be traced, if any. GoFundMe support for the family’s legal expenses had already cleared $10,000, and Schneider has since claimed in a recent update that he has officially fled to Mexico.
