Mormon business steals $200k from dying man

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

The Bricks and Minifigs ownership is Mormon. From what’s come out in court filings and investigations, a family trusted the company with a massive Star Wars LEGO collection worth ~ $200k that belonged to an old dying man.

The Mormon CEOs oversaw a franchise’s ownership changes, and decided to keep all inventory being sold on consignment. The family fought to get either the sets or the money back, but the American Fork Mormons won’t budge.

https://youtu.be/wscQpkcwgNU?si=HpVetgY3rReQFwFz

https://youtu.be/wscQpkcwgNU?si=HpVetgY3rReQFwFz

I really do recommend watching the second video, at least, where you watch the American Fork police department abuse their power in order to protect a fellow “brother.”

It’s Utah Mormonism on display for the world to witness. For example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/s/zHZZBFLrUy

[Everybody Wang Chung]

That video was hard to watch. I guess when your history starts with Joseph's criminal charges for treasure-digging, moves to the Kirtland bank collapse, and ends with modern MLM scams and today's affinity fraud, you have to admit that dishonesty seems to be in many Mormons' DNA.

[Rivendale]

I really do recommend watching the second video, at least, where you watch the American Fork police department abuse their power in order to protect a fellow “brother.”

It’s Utah Mormonism on display for the world to witness. For example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/s/zHZZBFLrUy

Apparently that 2nd video is available soon? How damning is the police manipulation?

[Tom]

The story is growing. Lawsuits, arrests, criminal charges.

https://tinyurl.com/c5yb8yk5

[drumdude]

It’s really disgusting to see the Mormon police in the area weaponizing their police powers to harass the people trying to help the victims. It’s a blatant example of Mormons circling the wagons to protect “one of their own.”

If you’re rich and LDS, you can get away with murder as long as you’re in Zion…

Strap in, this’ll be a long one. I’ll start with the side of events put forth by Mansell, RecklessBen, and Law/Gorman.

Bricks and Minifigs operate franchises; the whole dispute stems from a deal made between a man called Bryan Mansell and the former franchisees (Law/Gorman) of a Salem, OR store. Bryan’s father had amassed a collection allegedly worth ~$200k, but he’s now in poor health and so they were looking to sell. The owners of the store agreed to a consignment — meaning that they would hold all the sets at no cost, during which time Mansell would still technically own them, and then they would advertise and sell them, and then pass on a percentage of the profits — which, per the documents Law/Gorman have produced, was actually explicitly permitted in the contract.

After taking on this consignment, the franchisees went to B&M corporate and told them that they were considering moving out of the country, and inquired about the process of selling on the store; corporate responded by forcing them out and illegally taking possession of the store. There is an actual video of the owners explicitly mentioning having this consignment, and the corporate representative responds by saying that they will handle it and take on the responsibility.

B&M install new owners in the Salem store, Joshua Johnson and Brandon Best, but both these franchisees and corporate refuse to honor the consignment agreement, stating that consignments are prohibited by contract and that they have no responsibility for an unauthorized agreement entered between Mansell and the previous owners (although, once again, their contract contradicts this, and so does the actual video recording of the employee who said they would take it on).

It gets particularly awkward at this point, because B&M’s official stance is that they could only identify ~$5k worth of LEGO which potentially belonged to Mansell, and they supposedly offered to give these over, but not to reimburse for the tens of thousands in missing sets. For the part of Mansell and RecklessBen (a YouTuber who joined forces with Mansell to take on the case), they allege that this isn’t true at all, and that they are in possession of more sets — or at least were by the time they took over the store, as his sets were being advertised for months after Best and Johnson took over.

What ensues is a bunch of back-and-forth of “You have my sets/money” and “No”. B&M phone Mansell and, in no uncertain words, threaten him, stating that the cost of taking them to court over this would be prohibitively expensive and more than he’d ever have made off the sets, and that they intend to drag the case out if he tries. Law/Gorman later confirm that they said the exact same thing to the two of them, which is why they are currently crowdfunding the legal costs to take them to court.

After more nonsense with Mansell and Ben getting trespassed, they finally take B&M to small claims court for the $200k and win — only to find that B&M closed down the Salem branch so that they wouldn’t have to pay out, forcing the two to now attempt to privately sue both Johnson and Best.

Now, privately suing them requires that they be served papers in person; this has proven to be immensely difficult, in no small part because, somehow, Johnson and Best have the Utah police in their pockets, and they have made it their mission to “F” with Mansell and Ben as much as possible. Gems include:

A traffic stop alleging that they had heroin in the car.

After a 2 hour search turns up nothing, they then switch tack and start saying that they’ve got “dilated pupils”. They finally give up after trying to force a false confession for ages, but not before issuing a thinly-veiled threat.

Multiple unfounded traffic stops during which the police officer immediately addressed Ben in the backseat of the car by his name, even though there is zero reason to do so.

Several police call-outs while trying to serve papers to Best, where the cops just keep coming back even though they have already confirmed the case is real and they aren’t breaking any laws.

Finally, Ben gets arrested on some bogus charges for putting a sign up advertising a GoFundMe (to crowdfund legal costs, since all else has failed), and the police interrogate him then decide to book him in the jail for a month. A judge decides to release him because the whole situation is ridiculous, but with the police on his ass, any indiscretion could get him locked up, so he (ostensibly) fled to Mexico for the time being.

Now, if you’re wondering why the police are doing all this? Well, Ben and Mansell allege it’s because they, Johnson, and Best, are all members of the Mormon church, and protecting their own. Go Utah. It’s truly one of the most egregious examples of police corruption in the modern day you will ever see.