Please ELI5 me about the circlejerk about Lego's going on on Reddit? Someone stole some Lego's or something? Why is this such a big deal, I mean who cares if some Lego's get stolen? What's the hubbub? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to c/explainlikeimfive@lemmy.world

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[-] Contramuffin@lemmy.world 44 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

A family owns 100k USD worth of Lego sets.
Family wants to sell it. Family puts it on consignment at a store called Bricks and Minifigs. That means that the family still owns the sets, they are just selling it through the store and the store gets a commission for each sale.
Through a combination of poor record keeping and legal fuckery, the sets go missing. What happened to the sets is currently up for legal debate, but the prevailing theory is that the Bricks and Minifigs corporate office engineered a hostile takeover of the store to take control of the sets, and then used the ensuing chaos as an excuse for the sets going missing.
The family asks for the missing sets back, and the corporate stonewalls them and threatens legal action
The family decides to get a YouTuber, Reckless Ben, involved. He goes to extraordinary lengths to try to get the missing sets back from corporate. Due to those extraordinary lengths, he was able to document significant evidence of dishonesty from corporate executives, as well as police corruption and collusion. That is to say, there is significant evidence that the corporate executives are personally commanding the police to harass Reckless Ben. Also due to the police corruption, he gets arrested multiple times.
The internet gets involved. There is now a debate as to what Reckless Ben should or should not have done. One side argues that he was needlessly reckless and put himself and the family in a lot of legal trouble. The other side argues that his actions were the only thing that could have allowed the story to go viral, which in the long run was a net positive by exposing the corruption in the police department and in the company

The reason this story is going viral is because:

It's a lot of money that was stolen. 100k isn't small.
This wasn't some regular thief. The alleged thief is a multimillion dollar company.
The company is using legal loopholes and colluding with the police to silence any reporting on this story

[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 4 points 3 hours ago

And keep in mind that this money was to pay for medical treatment of the collections owner or his fathers'.

[-] geomela@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago

There is now a debate as to what Reckless Ben should or should not have done. One side argues that he was needlessly reckless

I mean...

[-] foggy@lemmy.world 36 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Sick old man gives $100-250k worth of legos to franchise for consignment.

Franchise takes over franchisee's store due to bad numbers.

A mix of imperfect paperwork from franchisee and fuck ton of missing legos with franchise has lego owner, franchisee, and franchise pointing fingers. Franchise had 2 dudes take over store. They look shady. Franchise looks shady. Franchisee looks minimally shady, disorganized.

Lego owner is missing ~$50-90k in payment/product.

Youtuber takes on the case. The police in the town seem like they're protecting the new franchise dudes.

New franchise dudes are prominent in local Mormon church...

Local cops are involved in local Mormon church...

Now it looks like an entire police precinct and an entire corporation are both in ridiculous PR damage control mode but also aggressively suing the YouTuber, Lego owner.

Youtuber successfully sued corporation for Lego owner. They closed the store instead of paying. Now youtuber is suing individuals who took over franchise for Lego owner.

It's a whole mess. This whole situation will be in law classes for decades.

[-] MrNesser@lemmy.world 45 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It's not Lego it's bricks and mini figs Sit down chill out and let me tell you a story:

A guy and his dad collected some Lego it took many years. Lots of this was unique and expensive, more importantly the collection held models no longer available.

The dad and sob dies decides to sell the collection (worth estimated above 100k) but wants decent money.

Enter the Franchise store for bricks and mini figs.(B&M) The son and the store owner enter into a contract. Life is good the collection is selling in the store the Franchise owner is happy.

Some time later the franchise owner wishes to move on, Florida or a beach is calling.

The franchiser contacts B&M and tells them, situation ensues where B&M and franchisee disagree over key points on leaving the franchise (like paying off the contract for the franchise).

At some point B&M take control of the store the now former franchisee gets escorted out by police and is on camera telling B&M the stock on the shelf isn't theirs and belongs to the son.

The son loses all access to the collection, B&M deny access and says it's theirs.

Key point the new franchise owner is friends with the CEO of B&M so something is fishy.

Key point the contract was with the franchise not B&M so there's legal issues there.

[-] TheDoozer@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago

I also think you missed the biggest thing (to me), which was the absolute, unmitigated corruption of the American Fork (Utah) police department, who acted like hired goons for the B&M guy and harassed a guy trying to collect for the Lego owner.

To me, it was a civil dispute that should have been handled by lawyers long before (or small claims court) right up until those Utah police were involved.

[-] DomeGuy@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago

$100k is generally not "small claims"....

In utah the limit looks like $20,000

https://www.utcourts.gov/en/self-help/case-categories/consumer/small-claims.html

[-] Pieisawesome@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago

100-200k is the estimated value of the entire collection before items were given to the franchise owner to consign.

Many sets have been sold and there is disagreement on the amount remaining, but it’s far less than 100k

[-] TheDoozer@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Additionally, small claims for individual sets or groups of sets totalling less than $20k. It would also mean dragging them into court repeatedly. And with the documents they have it should be a slam-dunk each time.

[-] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

Not that it affects the story at all, but I think Dad is still alive.

[-] MrNesser@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Thank you I'll edit that but I understood he had died

[-] cheers_queers@lemmy.zip 3 points 6 hours ago

he is actively dying and has no knowledge of what is going on. the son is selling the collection to pay medical bills and has to keep everything from the dad because the added stress could kill him.

[-] MrNesser@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

This is the best summary I've seen with legal implications

https://youtu.be/HH09tltEw1U?is=gcLC2URxGwm6Col2

[-] Nollij@sopuli.xyz 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

It's certainly a good place to start, but there is a fuckton of very important details not included in that video.

For starters, Legal Eagle (but not Devin) released a second video about the actions of the American Fork Police Department.

Coffeezilla got interviews with many key players not seen elsewhere. This covers numerous possibilities of theft, embezzlement, lies and cover-ups.

The Civil Rights Lawyer goes into much greater detail of the situation with the American Fork PD, and the criminal charges pending. He also discusses a number of possible civil suits against the PD.

[-] toiletobserver@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago

It's a showcase of morally corrupt people. Business owners, law enforcement, and apparently the Mormon Church tying it all together. It is absolutely not a shock to anyone already paying attention, but somewhat rare to have it all on video.

[-] velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago

Including Reckless Ben. He's fucked up this case just as much as anyone else has.

Seeing Redditors cry out that THIS is surely the thing that will expose the corruption of US law enforcement when BLM barely moved the needle sure has been something.

[-] cheers_queers@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 hours ago

he is the only reason there are eyes on this case. the son Bryan tried to go the legal route and made no progress until he reached out to Ben

[-] velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 5 hours ago

And now Reckless Ben has decided to represent himself in court.

Yes, he helped get eyes on it. No, he's not helping now.

[-] cheers_queers@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 hours ago

last i saw from him, he has high powered lawyers tripping over each other to represent him. could you link a source for that claim? ben is not as reckless as he pretends to be.

[-] velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

https://www.reddit.com/r/RecklessBen/comments/1u3jdvh/ben_is_trying_to_represent_himself_in_criminal/

https://www.reddit.com/r/RecklessBen/comments/1u3syb9/court_audio_reckless_ben_pretrial_conference/

There's still time for him to get representation, but so far he has only entered that he is representing himself.

Apologies for the reddit links in advance.

Edit: My point is that the story has now evolved to include Reckless Ben's actions, he's no longer just a journalist uncovering information. He has inserted himself thoroughly.

[-] cheers_queers@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 hours ago

thanks for the links, i will listen to the audio when i have the chance.

to be fair, he was involved by the Mansell family because they made no headway the legal way. i think it is a bit unfair to assume he is inserting himself to be selfish (i have seen this sentiment several times), he is simply doing what he can to bring attention to the situation, which worked extremely well tbf. i have followed his activism for years, and am even a patreon member. this is the most legal trouble he has found himself in to date, but he is no stranger to being harassed by law enforcement. i have faith that he will lawyer up. he may seem reckless (lol) but i have always seen a method to his madness.

[-] velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 4 hours ago

i think it is a bit unfair to assume he is inserting himself to be selfish

He's received millions of views on his videos and a lot of new subscribers. He's making a lot of money from this.

[-] cheers_queers@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 hour ago

he is also facing felony charges. for doing what the legal system didnt want to do. he had 500k followers before this despite doing this type of activism for years. if the authorities had responded properly to this situation, i doubt he would have gained much of anything or even been involved. sorry but this narrative of "only doing it for the views" is hilarious if you actually knew much about him. he was getting maybe 19k views on his more popular stuff before this with no reason to believe anything would change. this story just happens to be a lightning rod for people waking up to the blatant corruption in our "justice system" and he has thoroughly documented the abuse that otherwise would have been largely unknown.

[-] velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 hour ago

I never claimed he was only doing it for the views. It's a nice little kickback though, isn't it? And don't pretend that people run youtube channels like this just for funsies.

It's fine that you're a Reckless Ben stan and it's cool that he brought eyes to the issue. I think he shouldn't have inserted himself into the story so much and without real legal counsel. That's it.

I also think it's pretty fucked that it took a Lego collection to wake people up to the blatant corruption in our "justice system" when we have cops killing people in cold blood all the time.