An entire police department in Utah turned on a Youtuber and it was all caught on video. And it only took me 5 videos to break it all down. I started with an interview of that Youtuber – Reckless Ben – and now, I just re-interviewed Ben – just as a judge finally lifted his gag order, allowing him to once-again speak. So this is not only the finale, and part 5 of my analysis of the Reckless Ben police interactions, but also a brand-new exclusive interview of Reckless Ben, where he tells me everything that is currently happening. Oh and you’ll finally hear from the lawyer who has agreed to take on this police department and file civil rights lawsuits. There’s a ton here, so let’s go through it.
A 200,000 dollar Lego collection went missing. A YouTuber started to cover it. And then cops in Utah started to cover it up. It went viral all over the world. Then I started to cover it, and now I’m on part 4. We’ve gone from Reckless Ben and his friends being stopped and harassed; to them being stopped and harassed more and accused of having and being on drugs; to now Reckless Ben being placed in handcuffs, arrested and taken to jail. All by different officers with the American Fork Police Department. Now we know mostly how that happened, having recovered much of the previously hidden and redacted audio of the conversations that led to the arrest, and it’s even worse than I thought.
Hundreds, or maybe thousands of you, reached out to me about covering the Reckless Ben Lego videos. Ben reached out to me as well. Basically, he made a video about a stolen Lego collection that ended with him getting arrested and charged by the American Fork Police Department in Utah County, Utah. I was immediately intrigued and I wanted to help him. But before I could do that, I had to understand all of the facts. I needed to talk to Ben himself. I got a chance to interview Ben and review all of the court documents. This is Part 1, where I interview Ben. In Part 2, we’ll dive into the documents and the video of the interactions.
A little over a year ago, an army of small town cops, went outside their jurisdiction, showed up at the wrong address for a midnight raid over a stolen weedeater that belonged to a local politician. They busted into an innocent man’s home in the middle of the night, shooting and killing 63 year-old Doug Harless, a man loved by his community. As you may know from my first video on this from back on January 3 of last year, the cops were refusing to release any information on what happened. They claimed they had a warrant, but they still haven’t released it – even a year later. The mayor has played dumb for over a year. They claimed that the Kentucky State Police were investigating – though they’ve basically said nothing – even now, a year later. As it turns out, now we know why.
Cops respond to a silent alarm coming from within their own county courthouse, where they find intruders locked inside the dark, closed building. After taking them into custody, the ‘burglars’ tell the cops they are actually professional hackers, hired by the State Judicial Branch to test the courthouse’s security measures.
Then the local sheriff arrives, apparently embarrassed by the fact that the hired hackers were able to just walk right in an unlocked door in the middle of the night, and angry that he wasn’t informed of the security testing ordered by the state. So instead of releasing them, he orders handcuffs put on them and has them taken to the county jail and charged with burglary.
Then it gets even worse. The bureaucrats at the state judicial branch then get worried about their own jobs, and they attempt to throw the hackers they hired under the bus, initially claiming they did not authorize the “burglary,” even though they did. Eventually the State Supreme Court admits they hired the hackers and apologized for the confusion.
But the county still wanted to prosecute the two innocent hackers, who were caught in the middle of this government power struggle. Even up through the day before trial, the county prosecutor was refusing to drop the charges. He finally had to though, because they were innocent. So then the two hackers filed a civil lawsuit, which took years to litigate. Now, that just settled, with the two hackers receiving $600,000 from the county for their false arrest and malicious prosecution.
This is an absolutely insane story out of Iowa.
The official statement of facts from Justin and Gary’s lawsuit that was presented to the Court, much of which is quoted in the video:
A cop in (Ludington) Michigan sees a drunk driver at 2am and pulls him over. Then he realizes it’s his coworker – an off duty police officer at the same department. It’s his buddy, who just basically smiles at him and they both know he’s in trouble. Gee, that really sucks, right? But not to worry…. Everything will be okay because they’re the cops. And they can just turn their bodycams off, collect no evidence, and drive him home. Then the public will never find out, right?
This is Part 2 of the update on the viral video arrest of Demetrius Kern from Cleveland Heights, Ohio, which I originally covered in July of 2023, along with Mr. Kern’s attorney, Chris Wiest. Mr. Kern had been falsely arrested and charged after he was almost hit by a police cruiser driven by Officer Carly Lewis, whose video deposition was featured in Part 1 of this update. That arrest was primarily at the direction of Officer Lewis’ supervisor, Sgt. Naftali Wolf, whose video deposition is detailed in this video.
Here is the main brief by Mr. Kern’s attorneys that I walked you through in the video, using the video deposition excerpts they actually cited in the brief:
If you want to go further into the weeds, here is the motion for summary judgment filed by Defendant Wolf’s lawyers (to which the above brief is responding in opposition):
As I mentioned in the video, as of this date, the Court has not yet ruled on the pending motions. Which means that the case is just hanging in limbo with nothing happening, until such time as there is a ruling. The ruling will decide whether or not the lawsuit gets dismissed, or whether it proceeds to a jury trial. This is fairly unusual for a delay of this length to occur in federal court – though sometimes does happen).
Remember the video I did back in July of 2023, with attorney Chris Wiest, about the lawsuit that he had just filed for a guy named Demetrius Kerns? Kerns was almost hit by a police officer who was driving recklessly. Then when he stopped to get her information afterwards, and she apologized to him, her supervisor then showed up and began to escalate the situation, demanding Mr. Kerns’ ID and ultimately putting him in handcuffs – and later falsely charging him with obstruction, in retaliation for the fact that he was filming and being critical of the police. As Chris and I discussed, eventually he would have the opportunity to take the depositions of these two officers.
Well, it’s been a couple of years now and I have an update for you. The case isn’t over yet. It’s still pending. These things can take years. But I actually have the full video depositions of these two officers, and I’m going to go through them with you so that you can hear exactly what they had to say when confronted under oath. First, part 1 – the sworn testimony of Officer Carly Lewis. And then in Part 2 we’ll get to the rather-unbelievable video testimony of her supervisor, Sergeant Naftali Wolf.
Two officers with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources set up a sting using a decoy deer in a field next to a road. They saw a guy just stop and look at the decoy deer. He didn’t shine a light on it; he didn’t shoot at it; just looked at it, and then drove away. He did nothing illegal. But, he was an irresistible target for the two officers, because his truck was new and expensive; he had valuable gear they wanted for themselves. He hired a lawyer; she obtained the bodycam, and she was shocked at what she saw. She got the charges dropped and has now filed a lawsuit on his behalf. I got a chance to interview her and review all of the bodycam footage. It shows an out of control government agency, harassing law abiding citizens and trying to steal their stuff.
In Dover, Arkansas, Nathan Jones, of the Dover Police Department, walked into the 479 Smoke Shop and unleashed a series of threats towards the employees and the owner, after hearing gossip about himself that he believed originated from someone who worked at the business. The threats were caught on surveillance cameras. I spoke with the shop’s owner, who still hasn’t received even a single report from law enforcement, documenting the event.
