It’s been over two months since we’ve covered Reckless Ben’s viral battle to reclaim the Mansell family’s $200,000 Star Wars Lego collection from Bricks & Minifigs Franchising, and for good reason: it devolved into boring legal stuff. Once the drama reached Utah’s courts, the juicy controversy surrounding the drama mostly died down and things finally started to progress through proper legal channels.
Once the temporary restraining order against both Ben and the Mansell family expired, the long-delayed third part of Reckless Ben’s investigation was eventually released and the “Mormon Mafia” angle that initially enthralled the internet mostly took a back seat in Ben’s videos in favor of his efforts to document his struggle to make his case in Utah’s courts.
Unfortunately for Ben, that segment of the legal battle is still ongoing, as is the lawsuit issued against Bricks & Minifigs Franchising on behalf of Chrystal Law Gorman who previously, with her husband, owned the Bricks & Minifigs store in Keizer, Oregon from which the Mansell family’s Lego collection disappeared.
However, one of the three ongoing legal fights has finally come to a head, and it’s the one that initiated this entire debacle in the first place: BAM Franchising vs. the Mansell family.
In a joint statement on Bricks & Minifigs Franchising’s website, attributed to “BAM Franchising, Inc., Ammon and Matt McNeff, Baker Salem, Josh Johnson, Brandon Best and the Mansell family,” the collective group stated that they “are pleased to announce that they have reached a comprehensive and amicable resolution of a private civil dispute relating to the Mansell family’s LEGO Star Wars collection.”
The statement doesn’t detail exactly how much the Mansell family is going to be paid following the resolution, but it does state that the settlement is “not an admission of liability, wrongdoing or unlawful conduct by BAM, the Mansells or any other released party” and that the Mansell family’s “collection was originally consigned to a former operator of the Bricks & Minifigs Salem/Keizer Oregon store.”
That last bit is important to note as, in an email spotted by The Salt Lake Tribune, Chrystal Law Gorman stated that her lawsuit against BAM Franchising “is still moving forward and not affected by [the Mansells’] settlement agreement.” Likewise, while Ben has seemingly not mentioned or addressed the Mansell family’s resolution on his socials, this seemingly doesn’t affect his ongoing lawsuit against BAM Franchising either.