You may have read recently that YouTuber Reckless Ben was arrested in Utah in connection with a weird case involving an allegedly stolen collection of Star Wars Lego. If you’re wondering what it’s all about, so were we. Here’s the lowdown.
What’s actually going on?
The dispute centers around a large consignment of Star Wars Lego that belonged—or belongs, depending on whose side of the story you believe—to one Bryan Mansell of Oregon. As per the Salem Business Journal, a local paper that has reported extensively on the situation, Mansell and his father began assembling a collection of Star Wars-themed Lego sets in the early 2000s. By the early 2020s, they had acquired some 780 sets, all sealed in their original boxes. Mansell valued the collection at somewhere between $150,000 and $200,000.
In November 2023, Mansell decided to sell the collection, and—again, according to the Salem Business Journal’s report—signed a consignment agreement with Chrystal Law-Gorman, the co-owner (with her husband, Benjamin Gorman) of the Keizer, Oregon franchise of a chain called Bricks and Minifigs. The store’s Facebook page promoted the collection in a pair of Facebook posts that remain live, one of which reposted Mansell’s own Facebook post about the collection.
What did the consignment agreement say?
The consignment agreement was reportedly reviewed in full by the Salem Business Journal, and its terms sound pretty cut-and-dried: it made it clear that Mansell retained ownership of the collection, and that he granted the Keizer branch of Bricks and Minifigs exclusive rights to sell the sets on his behalf. The store received a 35% commission, with the remaining 65% paid to Mansell. The funds owed to Mansell were paid out monthly, and the agreement ran smoothly for a year, with the Gormans maintaining an inventory document to keep track of which sets had been sold and which remained at the store.
What went wrong?
Things started to go sideways when the Bricks and Minifigs store changed ownership in 2024. An extensive, in-depth report in the Salem Business Journal explains that the store’s owners—Law-Gorman and her husband Benjamin Gorman—approached the franchise’s corporate management in November that year and explained that they were considering a career change because the latter was planning on leaving the country.
Law-Gorman says she told the company that they wanted to sell the store, but that when the prospective buyer turned up, she was told that her franchising agreement was being terminated immediately, and that she was forced to leave the store immediately without being able to take a proper inventory of Mansell’s collection (and the rest of the store’s contents). There is security camera footage that appears to support her account; it also features one of the new owners reassuring Law-Gorman that he “takes on the business [and] all that consignment.” Bricks and Minifigs’ account differs, claiming that the Gormans owed unpaid debts and wanted to close the store.
Whatever the case, what’s clear is that the relationship between the Gormans and Bricks and Minifgs corporate fell apart completely, and the Gormans’ departure from the franchise was acrimonious and unpleasant. The store was seized and the Gormans are now suing the company for breach of contract and various other things.
What happened to the collection?
This the $64,000—or, perhaps more accurately, $200,000—question.
Due to the acrimonious nature of the Gormans’ removal from the store, they claim they were unable to take the existing inventory of the sets with them. Mansell, meanwhile, became increasingly dissatisfied with both the company and the new owners’ handling of the situation, specifically an alleged refusal on their part to let him inspect the collection, and also the non-payment of any funds after the transfer of ownership.
In April 2024, Mansell decided that enough was enough and sent a letter stating that he was formally terminating the agreement and that he wanted his Lego back. He claims that the new owners’ response denied any knowledge of a consignment arrangement and that he should ask the Gormans where the sets were.
Who are the new owners?
According to the Salem Business Journal, the franchise is now owned by Baker Bricks LLC, and the operators are Brandon Best and Joshua Johnson. Both live in Utah. Brandon Best is apparently the person in the security footage from the night of the store’s seizure from the Formans.
What role does Bricks and Minifigs’ corporate play in this?
In a statement issued last month, the company claims that the consignment agreement was invalid because consignment arrangements are prohibited under its franchise agreements, and that it can therefore not be considered a party to the deal: “The company was not party to the unauthorized Salem consignment agreement and bears no responsibility for obligations arising from it.”
The statement also claims that “after ownership of the Salem store changed, we thoroughly documented and assessed current inventory … [and] it was clear the full list of inventory in [Mansell’s] documentation was not located in the store. What items could be reasonably identified as allegedly belonging to [Mansell] was offered back to the consignor, but that offer was refused.” Mansell disputes this version of events.
Either way, this raises the question of where the missing inventory is, and why it hasn’t been returned to Mansell.
What does Reckless Ben have to do with it?
Stunt YouTuber Reckless Ben—real name Benjamin Schneider—took an interest in the case in mid-May 2026, and has since published five videos about the case, each of which has over a million views. The first—entitled “I tracked down the thief who stole $200,000 of LEGO”—made some pretty incendiary claims, including that Bricks and Minifigs had “stolen” the collection, and that the local police “are actively working with the thieves to cover the entire thing up.” (For what it’s worth, the footage that Schneider has published of his interactions with the police certainly doesn’t give the impression that they were especially helpful.)
Schneider’s videos feature him arriving at the store to ask what’s happened to the sets, who said it was a matter for corporate; he also went to the corporate headquarters, where he was to take it up with the store. More disturbingly, they also capture the store’s owners claiming that they own the sets.
You can certainly take issue with Schneider’s tactics—the “arriving with a camera and asking awkward questions” approach is unlikely to elicit positive responses. However, if you believe Mansell’s side of the story—and frankly, there’s little reason not to—then you can’t blame either him or Schneider for pursuing direct action after being stonewalled by both Bricks and Minifigs corporate and by the store’s new owners.
In any case, he and Mansell sued the store and won—at which point the Keizer location was closed. (“Temporarily”, if you believe the company.)
Why was he arrested?
Schneider has involved himself in the dispute rather forcefully, let’s say, and the police chief responsible for filing the warrant said that the arrest came in response to multiple complaints made by Johnson about Schneider’s conduct. Johnson accused Schneider of stalking him and posing a physical threat. In a moment of bitter hilarity, a bunch of armed police turned up at Schneider’s house to … look for stolen Lego. (The police chief’s explanation for this was that Schneider’s Airbnb host had “overheard conversations mentioning stolen Lego.”)
As of now, Schneider is apparently in Mexico and has just posted an update on Patreon. (In response, Bricks and Minifigs apparently tried to get Schneider’s Patreon account removed, a request that got short shrift from Patreon CEO Jack Conte, who is clearly team Schneider/Mansell in this case: “We have, in fact, unfortunately determined that Bricks & Minifigs can stuff it. We’re keeping Ben’s page up, and if Bricks and Minifigs doesn’t like that, they can sue us.”
What happens now?
Oh, god knows. There is litigation flying left, right, and center, and we certainly wouldn’t want to do anything like suggest that Bricks and Minifigs should just give Mansell his frickin’ Lego back. So we won’t do that.
