Coming up today on Mini Scroll, we're doing a mini deep dive
into the stolen Lego Mormon Mafia YouTuber Patreon drama.
Yes, all of those words will make sense later in this
episode. Hi everyone, welcome to Mini
Scroll, the daily Internet culture podcast bringing you the
biggest stories from social media, the creator economy and
the digital space. Every Monday through Thursday
and sometimes Fridays like today.
I'm your host, Lauren Meisner, the founder of the Australian
youth digital media brand Centennial World.
Welcome back to. I was going to say mini scroll,
but it's like a mini deep dive. Today someone in our Discord
actually called it free for all Fridays because as we know,
Fridays are always so random on mini scroll.
I was going to do a regular mini scroll, like a three episode or
a three story mini scroll, and then I knew this story was going
to be probably the main story. And as I looked into it, I was
like, this has to be the story. This is so insane.
I've only seen it pop up for me since Patreon got involved,
which is like at the very end. I can't believe I have not been
seeing anything about this since Obviously there are publications
that are covering it and people talking about it on Twitter and
stuff, but I honestly don't know how I've missed it.
So I'm really excited to bring you guys this full chronological
breakdown, an explanation into what is going on with this
$200,000 allegedly stolen Lego collection and how it involves
what people are calling the Mormon Mafia a YouTube and now
the CEO of Patreon. All right, before I get into it
though, Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.
It helps us so much. It helps us grow.
Please Spotify star rate US. And I promise if you guys are
regular listeners, you'll know this week was a bit chaotic.
Annabelle and I both had some like health stuff going on in
our homes and we have the grants that we were doing.
I was doing some public speaking, trying to run the
business as usual. It was just like honestly crazy.
So next week I promise we'll be much more normal and it is a
public holiday on Monday. But to say thank you for
sticking it out with us this past week and probably like the
most random mini episodes ever, I am going to do mini skull for
you guys on Monday regardless. All right, let's get into it.
So in late May, YouTube Reckless Ben published the first
installment of an investigation into the story of a man named
Brian Mensel. Brian and his very elderly
father had spent years building this extensive Lego collection
which included a large number of Star Wars sets, and they
estimated that the worth of this collection was around $200,000.
Brian consigned the collection to the Utah headquartered Lego
resale chain called Bricks and Men and Figs.
Them being located or headquartered in Utah is
important. However, it was specifically the
Oregon location that he consigned this collection to.
So I'm going to be referring to bricks and men and Figs as Bam,
because that's what everybody's been calling them in all of
these videos. OK, so Brian handed over his
collection of Lego to the franchise in 2023.
But essentially right after ownership of the store changed,
Brian and his family now allege that the new owners claimed
ownership of the entire collection of Lego.
So essentially they wouldn't be paying the Mensel family for the
sale of that Lego, even though that was the agreement when he
passed on the collection to be resold by the store.
The new owners of the store are named Joshua and Brandon.
They are Mormon and they live in Utah.
Remember that is where this is headquartered.
And them being Mormon does become essentially important
later in the story. So Ben explained in his video,
Ben is the one who's making the YouTube videos.
Reckless Ben, I feel like I'm going to keep clarifying who
people are for you guys because the names, it's just like a
bunch of like white guy names and it's gonna get really
confusing. So Reckless Ben, the YouTube
explained in his video that he had been trying to meet up with
Joshua and Brandon in Utah. So he like went to Utah, brought
his crew, like the production crew that's making his videos
with him and doing the investigation and they went to
Utah. He's trying to meet up with them
to have a good faith discussion regarding the missing Lego.
Ben was able to see Brandon. They didn't have like a
conversation, but he was basically able to track him
down. But Ben said he was unable to
reach Joshua because Ben and his film crew were stopped by the
police near Joshua's house for allegedly failing to stop at a
stop sign. Then, throughout the
investigation, Ben and members of his production team claimed
that they were pulled over multiple times by the Utah
police. For example, at one point,
officers pulled Ben over and searched his vehicle after
receiving a tip that it allegedly contained heroin.
No drugs were actually found and eventually Ben was formally
arrested by the Utah police after they had a search warrant
for his Airbnb because the police received a tip off that
Ben was the one who stole $200,000 worth of that Lego.
So they searched and they didn't find the Lego, but they still
arrested Ben and his crew. This is all late May, OK, like
the last few days of May. So then in this investigation,
Brian, the one whose Lego has been stolen, allegedly said in
one of these videos that this is a Mormon conspiracy.
Because many of the local police officers who have been doing
like these pullovers and these arrests of Ben and his crew are
members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Saturday Saints.
And Brandon and Joshua, the new owners of the Oregon franchise,
the BAM franchise, are Mormon too.
So Brian believed that the Utah police were basically in cahoots
with them to help get Ben off their back so that they could
keep the $200,000 worth of Lego. These allegations of corruption
are obviously unverified. However, as coverage of the
situation spread over the past couple of weeks, the phrase
Mormon Mafia began trending on X in relation to this Lego story.
So that is where Mormon Mafia is coming from in this story is
like the conspiracy theory that they're all in cahoots together,
but it keeps going. So like I said, this is all like
the last few days of May. So on May 28th, right before
Ben's arrest. So Ben was arrested, I believe
he was arrested on May 30th. So a couple days right before
Ben's arrest, a couple named Chris and Benjamin.
Different Ben, not the same as reckless Ben.
I told you all these like generic white guy names.
Benjamin and his wife. I believe they're married.
I'm not sure either way. His partner Chris, they uploaded
a YouTube video so Chris and Benjamin were the previous
owners of of the Bam Oregon location when the Lego was
consigned. So they say in their video that
they had to move overseas somewhat suddenly.
They said that Bam was seemingly supportive at first of them like
needing to sell, but then headquarters later admitted to
them that this had been the plan all along.
They said that after they told headquarters this on some random
Thursday night at the store, Brandon, remember of Joshua and
Brandon, the new owners of the Bam location showed up and
demanded the keys and threatened them with the police if they
didn't comply. I know you guys love when I have
Pumpkin here, but I don't know if you just heard her Jingle
jangling all around the office. She wanted to come up.
Hey, you want to say hi? If you guys are just listening,
I have my little doggie, my little rescue doggie, my 3
legged rescue girl pumpkin on my lap.
So the point of their video was to show support for Brian, the
one whose Lego has allegedly been stolen and supportive Ben
as well, who's making the YouTube videos and to explain
that they feel like their life savings have been taken from
them. So then they show footage of
Brandon allegedly in this video and they say that like when he
came to say like hand over keys or whatever, he also apparently
acknowledged that he knew that there was a big consignment and
said that he would be taking it over.
So they basically insinuate that they felt their hand was forced
and headquarters were just like, if you fight this, then there
will be legal ramifications. And in this video, they have
audio that is allegedly them speaking to someone at
corporate. They actually do show this guy's
LinkedIn page and say his full name.
I'm too scared to do that. OK, But they do it.
You can go watch the video if you want.
And you can hear allegedly him in this audio say that this
sounds like a threat because it is.
So the result is that Chris and Benjamin, the couple who
previously owned the Bam location who have made this
video, are suing Bam for this because through this takeover,
Bam was also trying to say that they don't allow consignment.
But Chris and Benjamin say that's not true.
And they have the documents to prove it.
So in trying to win the lawsuit for themselves, they're also
trying to wrap up Brian's like, Lego collection compensation
into whatever settlement they're fighting for.
And they set up a GoFundMe to help with legal costs.
They've already raised over $66,000 and their goal was
$30,000. All right, so then on May 30th,
BAM filed A lawsuit against reckless Ben and Brian Menzel.
So reckless Ben YouTube Brian Lego guy accusing them of
creating quote a coordinated multi platform campaign against
the company which contains quote, false accusations,
fabricated claims, deceptive practices and manufactured
confrontations to extort money racketeer profiteer and damage
the plaintiffs and their business interests.
So they basically are claiming that this whole thing is like a
fabricated extortion campaign. It keeps going.
Then on June 1st, Ben announced that he had fled to Mexico
following his release from jail. So after he released this video,
obviously public pressure on the Utah police was high.
So they ended up addressing this whole situation in a media
briefing. And also, I want to say, I know
I'm saying Utah police. It is specifically the American
Fork, UT police force, but that is just a mouthful.
So I'm saying Utah. So Police Chief Cameron Paul
said that Ben's arrest stemmed from complaints of stalking and
targeted residential picketing and that these complaints were
specifically made by Joshua. Wow.
Big surprise. On June 2nd, Ben uploaded a
response video to the police. And in this video, he is sitting
at like a fake media briefing podium.
And on the podium where it would normally say the name of the
police force, you know how they have that like, circular plaque
usually, and it says the name of the police force around it.
On his it says we steal from old people.
OK, so in this video, Ben accused the police of concealing
the true reason for his arrest. He claims that there was audio
redacted from the police body Cam footage.
However, they have the audio like Ben and his team have the
audio. They have it partially captured
on a GoPro that was set up inside his Airbnb.
In the audio, allegedly one officer can be heard saying that
quote, included in the warrant are Legos, which Ben argues
contradicts the police department's explanation that
the arrests were related to stalking allegations.
And it's clear that it was related to the Legos, which as
we know, they searched the Airbnb and there was no Lego.
So he's basically saying he was arrested for no reason.
So now another insane turn of events.
This is going to keep going. I guess I'm going to have to
give updates on Mini from now on, like about what's going on,
because I imagine this will keep going.
But the last final insane turn of events is that Patreon, the
platform has gotten involved. So Reckless Ben uses Patreon to
give his subscribers early access to his upcoming videos.
Bam sent Patreon an official takedown request on May 29th
asking for removal of media and accounts connected to Reckless
Ban, including a complaint, a request for immediate content
removal tied to a temporary restraining order, and a motion
for a TRO and preliminary injunction.
And then yesterday Patreon CEO Jack released a video on YouTube
where he basically said to Bam go fuck yourselves, sue us if
you want. And that is the story you guys
of the Lego Mormon Mafia YouTube Patreon drama.
I believe I have delivered all of the details that are out
right now in chronological order.
I really hope I did it justice. Hi you guys, another pick up
from me. I prepped this episode
yesterday. I recorded it, I was even
uploading it, and then I saw that overnight Bam had released
an entire their blog post documenting their side of things
with dates and all of these sources and all this
information. So it's way too long to, you
know, go through all of it. Obviously.
But some main takeaways they claim that the transition
between Chris and Benjamin as owners of the Oregon BAM
location. And the new?
Owners Brandon Best and. Joshua.
That that was. Fully planned they.
Claim that Chris became uncooperative, refused to hand
over the keys as agreed or to provide access codes, and was
observed making multiple. Trips to her car.
They claim that when the takeover occurred, there was
very. Little inventory.
And the store was run down. There was approximately $40,000
of inventory, which I guess they're saying was very little.
They also said that before leaving, Chris removed Ash from
the till attempted to print store.
Records and. Shared confidential footage
without authorization. Then they write in late November
or early December 2024, Brandon and Josh.
Discover. Approximately 25 Star Wars sets
in a closed closet in the back. They did not think any think of
the fact that these had small stickers on them.
They kept these sets segregated as they tried to determine what
they were. In December 2024, and still
unsure of whether they belonged to Brian, Bam showed these sets
to and offered to give Brian these stickered sets as they
felt bad for Chris's apparent mishandling of the situation and
despite no reliable evidence of his ownership, this offer was
not accepted by Brian Mensel. They say.
Following an internal investigation, BAM, with
internal and external help, discovered new evidence of
negligence. Three sets of books were
maintained by Crystal. As in Chris.
A personal e-mail account to which she retained undisclosed
access after leaving was still connected to company data and
point of sale records showing she significantly underreported
sales to Brian. And then they say on May 28th,
they issued a temporary restraining order requiring.
That the videos. From reckless Ben that his
videos containing allegedly defamatory content be taken down
they say that bam CEO extended an invite to Brian with a direct
offer to sit down together, review the.
Spreadsheets. Consignment agreement and point
of sale data and attempt to informally and fairly resolve
the problems associated with Chris's dealings with him,
including offering him to take every Star Wars Lego item
remaining in the Salem store and to otherwise find a way that he
might be made whole for anything demonstrated to be unaccounted
for. So essentially this blog post
sounds like they are saying that Chris along with her husband
Benjamin, who were the previous owners of the store, they were
to blame for a lot of this like miscommunication and a lot of
the disorganization of the store and all of that kind of stuff.
But I will link the full blog post in the show notes it is.
Very long, but like I said, I'm going to be doing updates on
this, so I hope that this gave you guys some good background
and any other updates on this I will include an regular mini.
Anyways guys, thanks so much for listening.
Thank you so much for bearing with us this week.
I know it was a bit chaotic. I love you guys.
Thank you and I hope you enjoyed Pumpkin for Friday Mini school
as well and I will talk to you on Monday.
Bye. Centennial World Podcast Network
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