Since I talked with Reckless Ben about the stolen Lego situation and the ensuing harassment and retaliation he received from the American Fork Police Department in Utah, a lot has happened. I got the chance to talk to the other guy with Ben in the videos, Tyler Shaw, who was the one driving the car – the same guy the cops falsely accused of being on drugs. And most importantly, I now have access to the full set of unredacted bodycam videos, that believe it or not, make the American Fork Police Department look even worse than before. Whatever the truth is about the underlying dispute about the Legos, one thing is for sure. This police department chose to take sides in that dispute, and abuse their authority and trample constitutional rights in the process.
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 couple of months ago I told you the story of Larry Bushart, who spent 37 days behind bars simply for posting a meme in a Facebook group. That video was a collaboration with FIRE, a national nonprofit First Amendment advocacy organization, who had just filed the civil rights lawsuit against Perry County, Tennessee, Sheriff Nick Weems and Investigator Jason Morrow, for multiple constitutional violations. That case just settled. Despite costing taxpayers in his county almost a million dollars due to his total disregard of Larry’s constitutional rights, Sheriff Nick Weems remains defiant, blaming everyone but himself.
Nathan Stephens was arrested on a fake DUI in Kentucky. It was all caught on bodycam, which shows him blowing a zero on the breathalyzer and also passing all the field sobriety tests, and then him being arrested anyway. Nate knew he wasn’t drunk. Officer Bell of the Grayson, Kentucky Police Department claimed he could smell alcohol on Nate. He agreed to a breath test and blew a zero – no alcohol in his system. Nate then passed all of the field sobriety tests, which Officer Bell admitted, initially telling Nate he would not be going to jail for DUI because he had agreed to take the tests. But then, after Nate said he would have sued the officer had he arrested him, the two cops covered up the bodycam and had a private conversation, ending with them then changing their mind about arresting Nate, and throwing him in the back of the police cruiser, handcuffed.
All of this we covered in the last video – Part 1 of this story: In this video, I’m going to tell you everything that happened next, including what happened when it went to court, as well as the latest update from Nate’s lawyer (as of yesterday).
7 months ago I showed you the video of Kentucky State Trooper Seth Owens arresting Devin Langsdorf during a traffic stop, as Devin’s 3 year old daughter was in the backseat. After beating him, Trooper Owens charged Devin with speeding, reckless driving, failure to produce insurance, failure to maintain insurance, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, no registration receipt, and endangering the welfare of a minor. Trooper Owens really threw the book at Devin. At the time I covered the incident 7 months ago, the charges were still pending. But now, just a few days ago, these criminal charges went to a jury trial. And rather than hear it from me, I want you to hear from the actual lawyer who tried that case – and he’s a good one.
Imagine there’s a bank heist committed in Fargo, North Dakota. Cops pull a grainy photo of the suspect off a surveillance camera. They run that photo through AI facial recognition software, and it matches with an innocent grandmother down in Tennessee (who has never even been to North Dakota). Imagine they just run with that AI match and issue an arrest warrant, without performing an actual investigation into whether the AI is correct… Angela Lipps was arrested at her home in Tennessee, jailed and extradited to Fargo, North Dakota. She sat in jail for months, with nobody even bothering to check and see if she was the actual suspect they’re looking for (she wasn’t).
This man goes into a Walmart to buy his elderly mother some over-the-counter arthritis medication. Meanwhile, this woman is riding around on a mobility scooter, even though she’s not disabled. Her kids are literally hanging off it as she puts around the store. The man can’t find what he’s looking for, so when he sees this woman, he asks her if she knows where he can find it. Then, all hell breaks loose. The man, “Mick” Patel, ends up spending 47 days in jail over what were obviously-false accusations (and as it turns out, this may not have been her first time). A lawsuit was just filed. I got the chance to speak to his civil rights attorneys.
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:
