CONFIRMED
The Provo Police search warrant and affidavit, No. 3327741; the Utah Fourth District criminal case, No. 261000376; and the company’s own documentary, Episode 3.
In February 2026, a Provo police detective went to a judge and swore out a search warrant for the Google account and YouTube channel of the journalist who has been reporting on Bricks & Minifigs. The warrant, No. 3327741, ordered Google to hand over the contents and the location history of the account behind “Reckless Ben,” a channel the affidavit itself describes as having more than 420,000 subscribers, and it ordered Google to keep the search secret from him for ninety days. The stated basis was Attempted Theft by Extortion and Commercial Obstruction. Those charges were never filed. When the case was actually charged two months later, it was two misdemeanors: disorderly conduct and criminal trespass.
The affidavit, sworn by Detective Medina Dore of the Provo Police Criminal Investigations Division on February 10, 2026, tells a simple story: the journalist and a companion came to the company, filmed, asked questions, and said they would publish videos about the business unless a demand tied to an ongoing civil dispute was met. From that, the detective asked a court to compel Google to produce not just the account’s messages but its identity and movement data: full name, date of birth, physical address, recovery email and phone, login IP addresses, device location history, and, in the affidavit’s own words, any Google Maps “Timeline” details and latitude and longitude coordinates. For a confrontation that happened at one building on two known days, the warrant asked for a map of where the journalist had been.
The extortion and commercial-obstruction theory is what let the detective ask a court to open a journalist’s Google account. It did not survive to a charging decision. The Information that the Utah Fourth District case rests on, No. 261000376, filed on April 7, 2026, charges only Disorderly Conduct and Criminal Trespass, both misdemeanors. The felony-grade theory that opened the account was gone by the time the State committed to what it would actually prove. The warrant is the record of the theory being used, and the Information is the record of it being set aside.
There is a federal statute built for the situation where the government wants a journalist’s files. The Privacy Protection Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000aa, passed by Congress in 1980 after the Supreme Court’s decision in Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, generally forbids the government from searching for or seizing the work product of a person who intends to publish to the public, and it gives that person a civil claim if the rule is broken. A federal court held in 2026 that the Act reaches the operator of a YouTube channel, because the statute protects anyone “preparing a book, broadcast or other form of public dissemination of information,” whether or not the drafters imagined YouTube. Whether the Act was honored here is a question for a court, not for this site. But it is the frame the law itself supplies: a secret warrant, backed by a gag on the platform, for the account of a person whose entire purpose is to publish.
The affidavit records the location of the confrontation as a “business called Bricks & Mini Figs” with a “front office,” at a Provo address that, on the Utah County parcel record (parcel 55:333:0014), is the home of the company’s chief executive, Ammon McNeff, not a store or an office open to customers. The company’s own documentary places the meeting at its corporate headquarters, where the journalist spoke to Ammon in person. The most economical reading is not sinister: the detective wrote down the address the complainant gave her, and the complainant gave his home address for a meeting that happened at the company’s offices. It is a small thing, and it is the tell. An affidavit that records the wrong building is an affidavit that reproduced one side’s account without checking it.
The fair counterpoint. A neutral magistrate signed this warrant, which means a judge found probable cause on the face of the affidavit. The journalist did go to the company and did make a demand and did film, and disorderly conduct and criminal trespass are ordinary, recognized offenses that the State is entitled to charge; the press holds no general immunity from trespass laws. Everyone named here is presumed innocent, including Detective Dore, whose affidavit is the account she was given, and including the company, whose complaint a court credited enough to sign. That the extortion theory was dropped does not prove it was made in bad faith, and that a federal statute exists does not mean a court will find it was violated. This is a reading of public court records and a company’s own film, not a ruling.
The threads this connects to: The takedown for the pattern of turning a critic’s reporting into a police matter, the cast for every named person and entity with its grade, and the map for how they connect.
Primary sources, all public: the Provo Police Search Warrant and Affidavit No. 3327741 (Det. Medina Dore, sworn February 10, 2026), a public court record; the Information in State v. Schneider, Utah Fourth District No. 261000376 (April 7, 2026); the Utah County Assessor parcel record (parcel 55:333:0014) for the chief executive’s Provo residence; and Bricks & Minifigs’ own published Episode 3. The Privacy Protection Act is codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000aa.
The BAM Map is independent reporting on matters of public concern. Nothing here is a finding of any person’s guilt; the criminal charges referenced are unadjudicated and every defendant is presumed innocent. Sources are linked so readers can check the record. · Home · Map · The law · Bodycam