Bricks and Minifigs Scandal - Follow-Up

This article is a follow-up to the previous article titled: $200,000 Lego theft that risks and entire police department.

Where this was last left off: Reckless Ben (RB) was released on bail and then was notified that there was a warrant out for his arrest. This was noted as #29 in the timeline of events in the previous article.

In the spirit of that, before getting into the more in-depth analysis of one of the particular timeline points, here is a brief update of what has happened since. Dates will be included as these events are happening very quickly and that will hopefully help provide context.

30. RB claims he has fled to Mexico to evade the police. (May 30, 2026)

31. Bricks and Minifigs (BAM) attempts to go after RB through Patreon (RB’s main source of income). Patreon’s CEO releases a roughly one-minute public video stating that BAM can “Stuff It” and that if BAM doesn’t like that “they can sue us”. (June 2, 2026)

32. The American Fork Police Department is hacked and there is a public upload of unredacted bodycam footage relating to this event. (June 3-5, 2026)

There is a lot of clarity and analysis that can be gained from the leaked footage in the 32^nd timeline point.

Context around the American Fork Police Department (AFPD) should be given, as it should influence how one views this footage. Here is a list of relevant contextual items:

a) This is only one of the police departments involved.

b) This is the police department that arrests RB and is primarily involved at the latter portion of the timeline.

c) AFPD is a very small department. 64 employees (54 sworn + 10 civilian). 22 officers in the patrol division total.

d) AFPD serves a population of ~46,000 people in American Fork and neighboring Cedar Hills.

e) The total geographic area that AFPD polices is about 15.4miles² or 39.9km².

f) They have a very low violent crime rate when compared to the national average 120/100,000 as opposed to 359/100,000.

Here are some of the reasons why this is relevant:

• Patrol officers have records from departments that are not theirs. This creates an extra layer of leg-work that needs to be done to verify things.

• Given that there are calls for the arresting agency to be brought up on RICO charges (racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations), this appears to be the particular police organization that member of the public is particularly infuriated with.

• With such a small organization, it is likely everyone knows each other. Small organizations also behave differently than much larger ones. There are less bureaucratic layers, there is often less bureaucracy and due-diligence than larger counterparts. There are a variety of advantages and disadvantages to this.

• The incidents associated with RB are likely to be one of the most significant things to be going on at the time. In 2024 their jurisdiction had:

3 murders, 28 rapes, 6 robberies, 23 aggravated assaults, 52 burglaries, 635 larceny-thefts, 44 motor vehicle thefts, 1 arson.

On an average day, an individual that does not live in the area with multiple records of being trespassed is going to be fairly high on a priority list for an agency like this. The safer a jurisdiction is, the less violent crime work police have to do, the more they tend to be increasingly vigilant for non-violent crime or incidents.

For clarity’s sake; this context does not excuse the behaviour of the police department or any given officer, but it may inform why it is more or less likely to occur.

On the leaked Audio/Video (First release, about 2.5-3 hours of footage):

This leaked audio and video is up on YouTube as of June 5, 2026. The audio and video contain a plethora of confidential and sensitive information about people like social security numbers, phone numbers, emails, etc.

A large part of this footage could easily have been justified as redacted for this reason.

In the footage that was available here are some observations and/or analysis:

This largely appears to be what one would normally expect from a responding police force. If one has a significant problem with this, then they might largely have an issue with how policing is done overall.

If one finds this behaviour unacceptable, then the issue is likely with how police operate as a function overall, not with this particular department in this case. There are still some issues with other clips, but those do not have unredacted versions yet.

This could be illuminated by going through some examples.

The interaction on the porch:

There is an interaction where the police offer to give the serving legal papers from RB to one of the men RB is attempting to sue in small claims court. In this interaction, the officer effectively offers to not give the person the papers if they so choose.

The main explanation for this would be that the officer does not want to personally get any more involved in a civil matter. If they act as the process server, they would potentially become entangled in this situation.

Throughout the video, three things become blatantly apparent:

1. The police are viewing this situation through the lens of trespass and harassment of a local person.

2. They do not want to get more involved than they need to.

3. They are collecting any and all information that could lead to charges.

With the way the police are collecting information, what things are followed up on or not followed up on, they appear to be acting as police normally do. In matters where individuals reveal potentially incriminating information, they delve further, in others they tend to disregard.

While the RB video positions the police as effectively collaborating with BAM, instead what appears to be occurring is the police attempting to get evidence to charge individuals with things they think they can reasonably charge them with.

Given all the statements BAM and their associates have given police, in the event it is determined they have been lying, the police have apparently collected a significant amount of potential evidence to charge BAM if things go that way.

The vast majority of this footage is basically just:

• People on all sides saying way too much to police without a lawyer present.

• The police taking mental notes on what they can charge them with.

To infer some analysis, it is likely that AFPD has allocated some resources to this matter as it could very likely be considered the highest risk event on a particular day in their jurisdiction.

To the outside viewer this may seem ridiculous, this is a YouTuber attempting to serve court papers. From the police perspective, this is an individual with multiple notes in reports of getting trespass warnings, a reportedly frightened local family, and now a warrant for their arrest.

The patrol officer is not generally going to defer away from all of that on discretion. They will generally, err on the side of caution and request all parties to calm down or avoid each other.

In the unredacted footage, the police do in-fact do this with multiple parties. There is repeated reference to wanting this to be handled by the civil courts and empathizing to encourage restraint.

On the other footage (2^nd release 23+ hours of footage):

Video on the porch with ‘Undercover Mormon’.

The officer is told about fake UPS package with rubber chickens.

Officer is also told by the home owner (Josh) that the next time someone, even a kid fools around on his property, he is no longer going to ‘play nice’.

This can be interpreted as violent defense of property and may put the police in a position where they may be trying to prevent a violent altercation.

The officer reviews the door camera footage and there is no conclusive evidence on the bodycam footage if the ‘undercover Mormon’ was explicitly told to leave or not. Josh claims he told him to leave, the ‘undercover Mormon’ claims that he heard Josh say he was “coming out”.

The officer basically errs on the side of Josh, who can trespass someone for any reason anyways, and the result of the interaction is peaceful walking away. Nothing really significant here.

The other angle with the non-case officer is relatively relaxing. The officer and the ‘undercover Mormon’ trade fishing tips and generally have a casual time. Nothing really relevant here.

Video with the reported heroin possession (none was found).

RB is cooperative, the police conduct a search of him and the vehicle, nothing is found. The K9 officer’s dog detects what all parties conclude may be an odor from someone in the car days prior that had smoked marijuana (not in the vehicle). Overall a waste of time.

RB’s associate claims that the owner of the Bricks and Minifigs store that closed down has a warrant out for his arrest. This is wrong, but he probably misspoke. The officer does not act on this.

The “walking a dangerous line” quote from the officer seems to be in response to RB’s associate who claims he has had ~30 people of various backgrounds in his car in the last couple of days. This seems like reasonably sound advice for an officer to give to a young adult.

He also instructs him “don’t give this guy ammunition if he’s in the wrong”.

The officer also instructs RB’s associate, who is revealed as the individual who impersonated a UPS driver related to legal shenanigans, that doing so is a federal crime. He further explains that he is not going to do anything about that, but that if the BAM employee wishes to, he could press a different police agency to pursue federal criminal charges.

Additional footage from the “paper service” clip

This footage includes a private phone call between a police officer and Josh. In this phone call the store owner indicates to the officer that if RB and his associates remain on his property, he will consider it breaking-and-entering and will ‘surprise them’.

The officer tries to confirm that Josh is not going to open fire on RB and works to deescalate the situation. There is also a significant back-and-forth between RB and the officer. The officer eventually decides to arrest RB on the charge of stalking.

Arresting for stalking makes sense within the context of the clip. The officer effectively got frustrated and essentially chose to forcibly end the situation. It may be the case that this is later found to be an abuse of power or unlawful arrest.

In Utah, someone can refuse service. The process server can record the service as refused and the court will proceed with the case.

Also, of note, in a different clip of the same interaction, a different officer instructs RB that these police “can’t serve civil service papers”. Unsure as to why, possibly department policy, but this does provide context.

What could have been done differently:

The police could have facilitated either service, or the refusal of service. Actually, technically when the officer informed the process server that Josh did not ‘want the papers’ that might count as refusal of service and their legal requirement may have been satisfied?

RB could have not come along with the process server, and service may have proceeded. This is a hypothetical and is unknowable.

The GoFundMe Sign and Arrest

RB’s associates put up the GoFundMe sign. They get permission from the property owner to do so. The police follow up with the property owner who then takes a look at the sign and tells the police they can take it down. 

The police warn RB’s associates that as he has already been charged with criminal stalking, they could get caught up in it. For context, this sign is directly across the street from Josh’s house.

They then work to make sure there was no crime committed in the posting of the sign, if so, they intend to give it back to RB’s associates.

Also, in this footage, they read RB’s associate his Miranda rights clearly, provide ample warning, are very reasonable, and tell him exactly what is about to occur. From the officer’s bodycam perspective, it is arguable that the reaching for the phone is suspicious.

There is also explicit instruction to RB’s associate that they are going to take his phone into evidence before the Mirada rights, this provides a lot of context as to why the officer is agitated. The officer also repeatedly reminds him to stop talking. This is actually helpful, as once he has been read his Miranda rights, anything he says without a lawyer present does not help him.

Now when the officer says “I was trying to stop it from locking out” in reference to RB’s associate’s phone, this very likely crosses a line. There is a difference between seizure and searching. It would not matter if the phone was locked out if this was only a seizure.

The police ask him if they can search his phone and he says no. They also explain that they can seek a search warrant, meaning they don’t have one. This is highly suspicious.

It is also made clear that police have been instructed to “not be abrasive” with Josh. Given his history of being on edge and how free he feels to share information, this is not surprising.

The Air BnB Raid

From the lieutenant’s bodycam it is fairly clear that the purpose of the raid is to arrest RB. Given the previous stalking charges and interactions with his associates, this is not surprising.There is some discussion online about the warrant for this raid being issued after the raid occurred and that it was for Legos. Both of these things indicate ‘funny business’ going on. There is also exigent circumstances if there is a warrant for someone’s arrest, although at this juncture there might not be a warrant yet. This one gets complicated.

Either way, if the warrant was issued posthumously then that is strange at a minimum.

At the end of the clip, the lieutenant refers to “douchebags by the property”, says “whoops shouldn’t have said that” and then turns off his bodycam. The timing of this appears suspicious. In Utah, officers can mute or turn off their bodycams when consulting with another officer so long as the “encounter is over”.

This gets into the sort of grey-area where if someone found this unacceptable, then perhaps the remedy would be to change that law.

Detective Questioning of RB

The detective reads RB his Miranda rights. RB decides to talk extensively without a lawyer. This is a very bad idea. The detective is cordial and allows RB to speak because RB in being non-violent and is making the detective’s job very easy. Nothing abnormal here.

Detective interviewing RB’s associates

The detective asks questions. No Miranda rights are read. He mostly probes for information corroborating stalking charges for RB. One person asks for their inhaler as they are feeling stressed, the detective immediately goes to get them their inhaler. It does not appear that the detective is interested in charging these individuals. Everyone answers everything fairly straightforwardly; no lawyers are asked for.

Detective charging of RB

The detective explains the charges and gives RB some advice on how the next part of the process will go. The entire interaction is fairly cordial; seems fairly standard.Interview of 16-year-old arrested in the Raid

The police find out two of the individuals arrested in the raid are 16. They do not expect them to be there. One of their interviews with their parent present is in the footage. It is fairly standard, cordial, and the statement given by the 16-year-old seems to indicate that they did not really understand what they were getting into. Fairly standard, they were released, their parent made a comment that they were ready to pounce with lawyers if they heard the police read Miranda rights.

There are now four outstanding issues:

1. The legitimacy of the initiation of certain police actions, certain traffic stops and the raid being examples.

2. The potential attempted search of a phone where it appears only seizure was permitted. Although with that individual being released, that probably will not be going anywhere.

3. Bodycam redaction policies

4. What is going to happen to BAM.

Realistically, other than the public relations and/or communications piece of this, not much is probably going to happen to the police in this situation. Most of this is business as usual. If people are uncomfortable with that, then a resolution will probably be found in changing policies and/or the law.

Learn more and watch the video playlist here.

Vezina is the CEO of Prepared Canada Corp. and is the author of Continuity 101. He can be reached at info@prepared.ca.