'We never thought it would get this crazy.' Reckless Ben on what's next in viral Lego case

Source: ’We never thought it would get this crazy.’ Reckless Ben on what’s next in viral Lego case Channel: FOX 5 Washington DC Published: June 3, 2026 | Archived: June 6, 2026

Video: ’We never thought it would get this crazy.’ Reckless Ben on what’s next in viral Lego case
Channel: FOX 5 Washington DC
Published: June 3, 2026
Duration: 10:19
Views: 680,148
Category: News & Politics
Video ID: ifte8245dBU

Description

INTERVIEWER: @joeybar.

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Transcript — YouTube panel (human-authored)

0:00 Producer Joey here. Well, we all want to leave something behind to our children and grandchildren. And for the Manel family, that was a small fortune worth of Lego Star Wars. Yes, 780 sets and more than 1,200 minifigures that they gave to their local bricks and minifig store in Salem, Oregon to sell on consignment. That store was taken over by new owners that the Manels alleged did not pay out that fair share. All of this was discovered by an investigator named Reckless Ben. And I will let the rest of the context come from his video.

0:38 Family reached out to me \[music\] saying that I’m their last hope to get them their life savings back. The video I made exposing them was actually insane. Check it out if you haven’t seen it yet. But all right. Well, we’ll let uh our audience do that on their own, but Ben joins us right now to give us the very latest on the case. Ben, how are you doing? It’s good. How are you? I am good, my friend. So, as for Bricks and Minigs, we reached out to them. They pointed us to their latest statement. Uh there’s another one coming, obviously, as this story continues, but they said that these kinds of consignment agreements that the manels made with the previous owners are not legal under what Bricks and Minigs allows franchises to do. Now, when the Manels sold this massive Lego collection to their local shop and the local shop said they would sell it on consignment, was there any kind of uh idea or warning? Bricks and Minigs is going to say that this consignment wasn’t even allowed and that’s why they’re allowed to take it.

1:45 But that’s the worst argument ever just because that’s really none of Brian’s business or my business whether the consignment was allowed or not allowed. I think they’re just trying to take away from the fact that they took this Lego Star Wars collection without paying for it. Um because whether it’s if this consignment is allowed and he gave them the Legos, they didn’t pay for it, that’s illegal. If it wasn’t allowed and he gave them the Legos and they didn’t pay for it, that’s still. So, it literally doesn’t matter either way if it was allowed or not allowed. At the end of the day, Brian gave this store $200,000 worth of his Legos and then he only got paid a tiny tiny amount back.

2:21 So, and once the new owners took over, they didn’t pay him anything. So, that really doesn’t matter at all. As things get crazy between you and the American Fork Police Department and Bricks and Minigs, we are wondering about Brian now that he’s been made whole. What are the words that he is saying? He is beyond grateful right now. He It’s crazy cuz he’s been doing this for two years and he’s done everything in his power to try and get either the Legos back or reimbursed or even just answers. And after about a year and a half of this, like before he contacted me, he was just completely given up. He had to resort to he got like he would constantly be having anxiety attacks, going to the hospital. Um he had to get put on medication and he was just Yeah. Yeah, he just given up at this point. And then now that all this has happened, I think he finally just accepted the reality that he lost. But now that like this is

3:25 all happening, it’s like no one ever pictured that like well, we all thought like, oh, we’ll get like some audience support and like maybe we can get some of the money back, but we never thought it was going to go this crazy like like we’re going to get it back plus like more for lawyers fees. So, um yeah, we have it’s just been crazy. Um, and then if we go to court with Bricks and Minifigs, we’ll also get to find out all the answers of like why they stole all the Legos. That’ll be exciting. But yeah, he’s like beyond grateful. He’s I mean, he’s like the happiest person in the whole world right now.

3:55 And then also, I guess it’s a little bit of insider information, too. Um, so his whole time his dad didn’t know about it because of his health. And I think Brian kind of felt bad. It’s like, I trusted you with I trusted my son with like our family’s life savings. and he felt like he took his dad’s trust and just like destroyed it, you know, and it’s been something that’s like really been weighing in on him of like, “Oh, my dad must be so disappointed in me. I can’t tell him that I failed the family, you know.” And he says as of I think it was like 3 days ago, he finally told his dad that like he’s like, “Hey, here’s the situation. We got all the Lego sets stolen from us, but we made the money back and we we we did it.” and he’s like, “My dad has no clue about any like social media or anything.” So, um, he was like, “Wait, how do people from all around the world know about this?

4:49 Like, h how is this?“ Because he doesn’t like understand like the internet. But apparent he he took it well, I guess. And he said it’s like it was the biggest weight off his chest that he’s ever felt in like the last two years. He’s just been like the biggest like relief ever. Well, that that is great. All right. Well, now you got me smiling. But on a less smiling note, uh, you know, we reached out to Bricks and Minifigs. They pointed us towards their latest statement. They have another on the way.

5:17 They are suing you, uh, partly for, uh, alleged stunts shown in your videos, uh, including, well, including this, which is a banner you put on the store as they closed it. What is the latest advice from your legal team that you can mention to us? So, I don’t know. They’re trying to get me for damaging the store, um, is what they’re claiming. However, the store was not damaged. We just tied it to a bush on the ground and we tied it to like a pipe at the top. So, we didn’t damage the building. If anything, we just left an accurate sign on their building. We They are permanently closed. Uh, and they closed down the store to avoid having to pay the family what was owed to them. So, I And here’s the thing, too, is they forgot. I I wouldn’t have had to do this if they would have just mentioned on Google and like Apple Maps that they were closed, but people were showing up uh every single day expecting

6:17 an open store. And the worst part is people had already made deposits for birthday parties. So, all the kids would show up for their birthday and then they would just have to sit in an empty parking lot for like their like six-year-old kids’ birthday, you know? And it was just like depressing. So, I was like, “Well, if they’re not going to put on their Google that they’re closed, then like I think I’m doing a public service to the public by putting this sign up. I know it’s going to go viral and that way the whole world can see they’re closed and now you don’t have to drive all the way to their store for your kids’ birthday party and like ruin your kid’s birthday because of this.” So, I thought I was doing the public uh a service by putting that sign up. Um, technically it is considered littering.

6:57 So, I will pay the littering fine if that is needed. But, um, I thought that was a small price to pay to let the public know that Bricks and Mini Figs has closed because they don’t want to pay this family out. And one thing, as the whole internet covers this, I want to follow up on a video from M&R Productions, a Lego YouTuber. You commented on the video yesterday. Uh, in it he says both Brian, the original owner, and Ammon, the CEO of Bricks and Minigs, say that Brian was paid $19,000 for the part of the collection sold by that Salem store, but that Brian should have been paid a lot more than that if he was actually getting paid the proper uh share of the consignment sale that he’d agreed to with the original owners.

7:43 Did you have a chance to take a look at that? So, I’m not a LEGO expert, but since this story’s been blowing up, a lot of like actual LEGO collectors have been looking into this, and it’s estimated that he still should have had around $120,000 worth of sets in the store. Around um it’s about $15, $120,000 is what the LEGO experts are saying. And you’re right, in that YouTube video, he was able to look at screenshots after corporate took over the store and saw, hey, there is about $120,000 of sets still in the store after the corporate took it over. However, the corporation’s claiming, oh, there might have been $5,000 worth of sets, even though you can go through the Google reviews and look at the sets that are in the store and match them up to Brian’s inventory.

8:32 And you can I mean, this is all verifiable online. And so the evidence is on the internet and the Lego community is doing its thing and like dissecting everything. So as per the latest from Brian, Crystal, the store’s original owner, was paying him out the proper amount for the consignment sales. So that’s what it seems like when you match the the Lego sets that are still in the store after it got taken over. It looks like Crystal was paying. Um, this is still has to be like 100% verified.

9:03 hasn’t been verified in the court yet, but from what the LEGO community makes it seem like, it does seem like that right now. Yes. All right. Well, we’re going to leave the courts to the courts. In the meantime, the court of public opinion has come out in full force. Uh this GoFundMe that you have also now been sued for the use of this image that is the cover of uh but it has raised an incredible amount of money. So, we’re going to put all that money from the GoFundMe in a legal trust and that money will all be to Brian for his legal fees because this is going to be an expensive they’re basic and minifigures basically putting their top lawyers. They’re going with they’re putting all of their resources at this point into suing Brian because um if this if they lose this could actually destroy their like hundred million dollar company. So, it’s like they’re going to do literally whatever they can at this point to make sure they don’t go under. here on the live zone. We will soon welcome the CEO

9:58 of Bricks and Minigs to respond and then probably you again and then American Fork Police Department and then every single person because this is this is the story of the century at least in the Lego community. Reckless Ben, you could find him on YouTube and across all platforms. Thank you for joining me today. Oh, you’re gum.