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The BAM Map · what is documented

The established record

The graded, documented fact-spine behind the investigation, FRANCHISE and APEX facts, firewall-divided, each graded and linked to its source.

The established record, the graded, documented fact-spine behind the investigation, divided by the firewall: the FRANCHISE facts (BAM and the Salem field) and the APEX facts (Daniel McNeff / Legally Mine). Every fact carries its eight-grade pill and opens its source; nothing here is a finding of guilt, and nothing is summed.

How to read the grades

ADJUDICATED court-decided · ADMITTED party-admitted · CONFIRMED primary document · CORROBORATED multiple sources · ASSERTED alleged, not decided · INFERENCE reasoned read · UNRESOLVED open · METADATA index/metadata only · REFUTED contradicted by the record

FRANCHISE, BAM and the Salem field (27)

What is documented on the franchise side, the registered mark, the self-impeaching disclosure, the insolvency, the insider resale, the corrected damages posture, and, since the summer of 2026, what the courts, the liens and the disclosure amendments have put on the record.

  • ADJUDICATED
    Bricks & Minifigs / BAM owns the registered BAM standard-character mark (Reg. 8,046,031, Principal Register, 12/2/2025), to BAM Franchising itself; the TTAB opposition against the look-alike was sustained. BAM Franchise Disclosure Document (2026)
  • ADMITTED
    BAM’s 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document contradicts itself on whether it has a parent: Item 1 says “no parents,” while the CFO’s own Item 2 bio describes a “Franchisor’s Parent” he has run since June 2016. BAM Franchise Disclosure Document (2026)
  • CONFIRMED
    BAM is a Delaware corporation (redomesticated from Oregon by a survivor merger, effective for accounting 12/18/2023, filed in Delaware 4/18/2024), not a merge-up into a hidden parent. Delaware Certificate of Merger - BAM Franchising (Oregon) into Delaware - File 2482543, Reg. No. 2482543 Delaware BAM Franchising Entity Status
  • CONFIRMED
    The FDD reports zero Oregon outlets reacquired in 2024 and zero sold to franchisees in 2025, and carries no related-party footnote, yet BAM’s own complaint swears it repossessed the Salem store (11/14/2024) and sold it (Q1 2025) to a BAM recruiter and its repossession inspector. The transaction at the center is the one the regulated filing omits. BAM Franchise Disclosure Document (2026) Verified Compl., BAM v. Schneider-Mansell, No. 260402353
  • CONFIRMED
    The Ohio Supreme Court entered a consent decree (2/20/2025) enjoining Legally Mine and Daniel McNeff from the unauthorized practice of law, on admitted conduct with an express hearing waiver, plus a $5,000 penalty and $1,220 in costs. Final Order, Ohio Bar v. Legally Mine Ohio Bar v. Legally Mine
  • CONFIRMED
    BAM Franchising’s audited financials show balance-sheet insolvency from FY2022, deepening to negative equity of −$621,091 at FY2025. The audit opinions are clean and unqualified; the numbers meet the objective going-concern test on their face while the self-authored record never says so. BAM Franchise Disclosure Document (2026)
  • CONFIRMED
    BAM IP Holdings LLC (formed 7/16/2025, managed by Ammon and Matthew McNeff) is a separate vessel built to hold the franchise IP, but the marks still name BAM Franchising and no USPTO assignment has recorded. The carve-out is built, not fired. Utah business registry, entity No. 14333873 (BAM IP Holdings) Certificate of Organization BAM IP Holdings LLC, Reg. No. 5227635
  • CONFIRMED
    The operating company pledged its assets to JPMorgan Chase while Legally Mine pledged 450,000 of its shares to outside lenders, the collateral net binding the entity pool. Utah UCC No. Utah UCC - BAM Franchising Detail Secondary Copy Utah UCC - Detail
  • CONFIRMED
    “Legally Mine” as a live brand is now an assumed name owned by Centra Wealth Solutions LLC, with BTJD Corporate Services as registered agent, a fresh wrapper around the old product. Filing History Centra Wealth Solutions LLC, Utah business registry, entity No. 14681035
  • ADJUDICATED
    In a Washington bankruptcy, a $7,800 payment to Legally Mine was avoided under §549 and a judgment entered (2019), later fully satisfied, a single avoided transfer, not a fraud finding, and stated individually, never summed. Compl., Peterson v. Legally Mine Peterson v. Legally Mine Peterson v. Legally Mine
  • CONFIRMED
    The insider resale is on the record: a failed Jace & Ace franchise ran from the independent franchisee to a company-owned store and onward to Baker-affiliated buyers under a 3/27/2025 asset-purchase agreement. Jace & Ace (bankruptcy) 20-40193 doc23 Schedules Original Jace Ace LLC Jace & Ace (bankruptcy) 20-40193 doc29 Disclosure Statement for Small Business Bricks & Minifigs Franchise Disclosure Document (2023)
  • REFUTED
    The pleaded “$200,000 stolen” consignment figure traces to a 2023 store promotional valuation; the genuinely unexplained gap is modest (~$10–20K net) and routes principally to Chrystal Law / the Salem-Keizer franchise (Exhibit A signed “by Chrystal Law, Owner”), not BAM corporate. “$17,559” is a BAM sales-tracking figure, never a paid-to-Mansell number. Verified Compl., BAM v. Schneider-Mansell, No. 260402353 BAM v. Schneider-Mansell, No. 260402353
  • CONFIRMED
    LEGO’s own 2/28/2025 letter disclaims any affiliation, refuting the “authorized LEGO reseller” pitch, a fraud-in-the-inducement hook on the franchise sale. BAM Franchise Disclosure Document (2026)
  • CORROBORATED
    BAM’s Josh Johnson resolves to Josh Johnson's residential address (American Fork), Utah (parcel 13:044:0158), the AFPD mobile-data-terminal home address, and is therefore NOT the Wasilla, Alaska “Joshua Johnson.” The collision is excluded.
  • ADJUDICATED
    Provo City v. Schneider, No. 261000376, was dismissed without prejudice by order signed September 14, 2026, on the city’s own motion, the day before a hearing cleared for live streaming; the attempted-extortion and commercial-obstruction theories in the February search warrant on the journalist’s Google account were never charged. The dismissal →
  • ADJUDICATED
    The federal preliminary injunction of July 7, 2026 in BAM Franchising, Inc. v. Schneider (D. Utah No. 2:26-cv-00593) was entered on the parties’ joint motion without the state order’s speech clauses: every party signed away the gag and the takedown. The joint motion →
  • CONFIRMED
    BAM’s disclosure document, amended and certified to Minnesota on September 9, 2026, tells every prospective franchisee that its case against Reckless Ben and “the facts surrounding it” are “material to the decision to enter into a Bricks and Minifigs franchise agreement.” The April edition, on which at least one new store was sold, carried none of it. The amendment → The April store →
  • CONFIRMED
    BAM struck “consignment services” from its marked disclosure documents in 2025 and again in 2026, then said a third-party consignment “has never been part of that model”; Item 1 listed consignment services, subject to BAM’s approval, in every edition from 2014 through 2024, and the franchise agreement in the current edition still lists them. Both strikes, on the page →
  • CONFIRMED
    On February 24, 2026 a Delaware financing statement gave Hillcrest Bank, a division of NBH Bank, a lien on all of BAM Franchising’s inventory, equipment, accounts, deposits, contracts, intangibles and goodwill; BAM’s own balance sheet dated May 31, 2026 carries the bank at $378,884.70; the disclosure document certified September 9 never mentions it. Five days earlier the chief executive and his wife had signed a deed of trust securing a home equity line on his house. The lien →
  • CONFIRMED
    On June 30, 2026, four days after the case reached federal court, BAM Franchising assigned “the entire interest” in all thirteen of its marks and applications to BAM IP Holdings, LLC; the USPTO recorded it July 8 (reel/frame 9331/0033). The vessel noted above as built but not fired has fired: the franchisor no longer owns the marks its disclosure document certifies as its own. The assignment →
  • CONFIRMED
    BAM’s own filed tables book eight corporate takeovers of franchised stores in six years, against its chief executive’s words to his franchisees: “Corporate taking over is the last resort. The absolute last resort. We never do that.” The tables →
  • CONFIRMED
    BAM took back The Last Relic’s Wesley Chapel store on December 12, 2024 with a copy of the letter its lawyers had written for the Messers a year earlier, greeting and document number intact; Best and Johnson incorporated the replacement company the same day. The letter → The same day →
  • CONFIRMED
    Under oath, in two DMCA notices to this site’s host (September 8 and September 23, 2026), BAM’s chief operating officer swore that the store-by-store damage study and the franchisee script published here are BAM’s own, worksheet by worksheet; not one figure is disputed. The notice →
  • CONFIRMED
    On August 19, 2026 BAM announced that Bryan Mansell, whom its racketeering complaint had accused of supporting an extortion scheme, “has been made whole,” apologized to him and dropped him; on August 27 BAM and Mansell jointly moved to dismiss every remaining claim against him with prejudice under an August 16 settlement that preserves his “investigative journalism.” The apology → The joint motion →
  • CONFIRMED
    Josh Johnson, a plaintiff who verified BAM’s complaint, said on a recorded call published September 25, 2026 that “we got Salem for free” and that “Ammon didn’t want to give Bryan his Legos back.” That he said it is recorded; what it describes is his account, and the defense has filed it against the complaint he swore to. The call → The filing →
  • CONFIRMED
    The Salem franchisees’ First Amended Complaint (Utah Business and Chancery Court No. 260200029, filed August 14, 2026) names Ammon and Matthew McNeff personally, adds Brandon Best, Josh Johnson and their companies, and pleads racketeering under Utah’s Pattern of Unlawful Activity Act. The filing is a fact; its allegations are pleaded, not found. The amendment →
  • CONFIRMED
    BAM told franchise buyers in its 2019 and 2020 disclosure documents that it had no parent while, by its own balance sheets and Legally Mine’s own UCC pledge, Legally Mine held 450,000 of its 675,000 shares, 66.7 percent. The arithmetic →

APEX, Daniel McNeff / Legally Mine (14)

The firewall. The apex facts below establish the asset-protection structure and the recorder-archived home rotation. They are kept separate from the franchise victims: apex dollars reach the franchise field only through an unsettled reverse/horizontal veil-pierce. Intent stays an inference.
  • CONFIRMED
    The family’s home-holding AP-LLC, Rivendell Estates LLC, is owned by the Daniel J. and Evelyn F. McNeff Living Trust (registry-verified), the trust-apex leg of the home-rotation structure.
  • CONFIRMED
    The family’s own 2016 Certificate of Organization bakes in the exact non-pro-rata GP-control / charging-order-defeating clause the Legally Mine handout sells, the mechanic run on themselves (strong knowledge/design scienter).
  • CONFIRMED
    Utah County recorder, batch one: on 2021-01-12 four asset-protection LLCs quitclaimed their houses to Evelyn McNeff in four consecutive entries (5830–5833), ~10 days before the sons’ federal suit. Utah County Recorder, 2021-01-12 batch transfers to Evelyn McNeff (entries 5830-5833)
  • CONFIRMED
    Those same four January deeds were recorded defective on their face (a no-signer jurat not even entitled to record), then quietly re-executed and re-recorded cured seven months later (entries 141977–141980, on 2021-08-13), once the sons’ suit had cleared; the family’s own in-house notary, commission #702080, signs both the defective originals and the cures (the four deeds, side by side). Utah County Recorder, 2021-01-12 batch transfers to Evelyn McNeff (entries 5830-5833)
    A defective acknowledgment is a recording defect, not a crime, and no court has found the re-recording anything but a correction; the documented tell is the identical defect-and-cure across all four, by the family’s own notary, timed to the litigation calendar.
  • CONFIRMED
    Utah County recorder, batch two: on 2023-02-26 Evelyn deeded three houses out to new Tolkien-named shells (Bagend Burrow, Green Dragon Lair, Phoenix Keep) in consecutive entries (11822–11824), the same coordinated-batch fingerprint. Utah County Recorder, 2023-02-26 batch transfers from Evelyn McNeff (entries 11822-11824)
  • CONFIRMED
    The Provo 2012 Goldenwest $250,800 deed of trust has no recorded reconveyance; the 2026 $300K refi released only the $46K 2017 DT, leaving ~$254K of new secured borrowing over an unreleased lien, an equity-strip strengthened.
  • CONFIRMED
    The note was executed 1/26/2021, the obligation incurred and perfected by UCC-1 #210216749881-3 on 2/12/2021, pledging 21% of Legally Mine plus operating assets to sons Ammon and Matthew securing a $1,728,000 note documented in four court pleadings, insider-preference + retained control + an adverse inference, NOT collusion. Utah UCC - Detail
  • CONFIRMED
    Six commonly-controlled entities (Legally Mine, Legal Bear, Legally Mine Tax and Accounting, Procure, Shield, Team Dentistry) are pledged under a single blanket lien, Daniel McNeff the lone signatory, all at one Orem address, the chain-9 unity proof. Utah UCC - Detail
  • CONFIRMED
    Legally Mine renamed to “LM OLDCO” the same minute as its tax arm (5/21/2026), while Centra registered the “Legally Mine” assumed names days later, the same-minute husk-shed and brand handoff. Filing History LM OLDCO LLC, Reg. No. 7228976 Filing History Centra Wealth Solutions LLC, Utah business registry, entity No. 14681035
  • CONFIRMED
    The IRS distress signal: $891,502.75 across 8 federal tax liens (FY2016–2019, all released), an encumbrance, not a loss, and never published as a damages dollar.
  • CONFIRMED
    Centra organizer Mark Comer is confirmed as the Mark R. Comer of the FTC’s 1999 iMall action (SEC EDGAR age bridge, a continuous county-assessor ownership chain, and his own 2016 self-admission). The scope qualifier travels: the lifetime ban was on Internet and pay-per-call business opportunities, the franchise-sales bar was 10 years and expired around 2009, and the FTC judgment was a stipulated settlement, not a merits admission. Order
  • CONFIRMED
    The North Carolina State Bar’s Letter of Caution of May 1, 2015 (file 15AP0008) to Ammon McNeff, then Legally Mine’s president and now BAM’s chief executive: “You provided these residents with no beneficial assistance and yet you did not refund any of their money.” The letter →
  • CONFIRMED
    Legally Mine has been sued in Idaho, Texas, Missouri, California, Washington and Ohio since 2015: judgments against it collected in Idaho and Washington, the other four dismissed with prejudice by agreement, settlement or stipulation. The six dockets →
  • ADMITTED
    In the Ohio unauthorized-practice case, Legally Mine stipulated that, warned in July 2020, it made “no significant changes” until it engaged Ohio counsel in December 2021. The stipulation →
How the spine reads, with the firewall. The published lead is Utah’s anti-SLAPP law Utah Code 78B-25-101 et seq. (UPEPA), UT ST 78B-25-101, -107✓ Mackey v. Krause, 2025 UT 37, 575 P.3d 1162✓. The civil fraudulent-transfer case is prima-facie at the APEX, a confluence of badges under Utah Code 25-6-202, UT ST 25-6-202, (2)✓, with the Utah Code 25-6-304, UT ST 25-6-304, (5)(b)✓ new-value safe harbor keeping the secured liens and the Article-9 repossession off the avoidance target. Relatedness is supported under H.J. Inc. v. Nw. Bell Tel. Co., 492 U.S. 229 (1989)⌖. The predicate criminal acts are NOT established; fraudulent transfer is not a §1961 predicate ($0 racketeering dollars); intent is an inference held beside the innocent estate-planning reading; the documented damages are modest and itemized, never a summed total. The claim is not that the McNeffs are racketeers, it is that they built and ran the structure the law was written to examine. Every defendant is presumed innocent. Reaching the franchise defendants from the apex needs an unsettled reverse/horizontal veil-pierce.