Update · September 14, 2026
The two misdemeanors from December 10 at BAM’s Provo office, disorderly conduct and trespass, are gone. Judge Stephen Schreiner signed the order at 10:52 a.m. Provo time, without prejudice, on a motion the city filed Thursday that gives one reason: “In the Interest of Justice.” The case came out of the police file that produced a search warrant for Schneider’s Gmail and YouTube on an extortion theory that was never charged. The papers were retrieved from the court on Monday by Chris Reports Things, who posted the order on Reddit that afternoon; they are hosted here.
CONFIRMEDProvo City v. Benjamin Paul Schneider, Provo City Justice Court No. 261000376, dismissed without prejudice by order signed September 14, 2026, at 10:52 a.m.; both counts show the same disposition on the court’s own case historyCONFIRMEDthe sequence: a pretrial hearing set for September 15 at 11 a.m., in person; Court TV and Law & Crime asked on September 8 to cover it, the judge allowed live streaming on September 9, and the city moved to dismiss on September 10CONFIRMEDthe file behind it, Provo police case 25PR26279, is the one in which a detective obtained a warrant for Schneider’s Google account in February on attempted extortion and commercial obstruction, charges that were never filed; what was filed were these two, and now nothingUNRESOLVEDwhy the city moved, whether it refiles, what Provo police do now with whatever Google produced under the February warrant, and what the end of the case unlocks in records that were withheld while it was open. The stalking and picketing case out of American Fork is unaffected; its next hearing is September 30
It is one page. “Based upon the foregoing Motion and good cause appearing, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the above-captioned matter be dismissed without prejudice.” The motion it rests on, filed by Provo City prosecutor Robert Trombly on September 10, is not much longer, and its whole account of itself is a numbered list with one item.
“Provo City, through the undersigned prosecutor, moves the court for an Order to Dismiss, without prejudice, the Information filed in the above captioned matter. This motion is made for the following reason(s): 1) In the Interest of Justice.”
“Dated: September 14, 2026 10:52:58 AM. /s/ STEPHEN H SCHREINER, Justice Court Judge. IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the above-captioned matter be dismissed without prejudice.”
The charges came from BAM’s office in Provo on December 10, 2025: disorderly conduct after being asked to stop, a class C misdemeanor, and criminal trespass after notice, a class B, in a hallway BAM does not own. Provo police arrested Schneider that day. The city filed the information on April 7, 2026. He was arraigned by video on May 14, representing himself, and pleaded not guilty. Pretrial conferences on June 8 and July 6 were continued, the second at the request of his lawyer, Jon Williams, and the case was set for September 15 at 11 a.m., in person, in Courtroom 1.
On September 8, an assignment editor for Court TV and Law & Crime asked the court for permission to cover that hearing. On September 9, Judge Schreiner granted it: “Live streaming is allowed.” On September 10, the city moved to dismiss. On September 14, the day before the cameras, the judge signed. The hearing is moot. Nothing was argued and nothing was decided, and the record of why says “in the interest of justice.”
The case number on the police side is 25PR26279, and this site has been inside it since July. It is the file in which Detective Medina Dore swore, on February 10, that a local business had been threatened with “defamation and property damage” unless it paid, and obtained a warrant for Schneider’s Gmail and his YouTube channel on attempted theft by extortion and commercial obstruction, with Google ordered not to tell him for 90 days. Neither offense was ever charged. It is the file that received an unsigned, unsworn typed statement from Adam Brimhall, by several accounts the son of BAM’s chief financial officer, about a conversation he said he overheard at an Orem smoke shop, which the company later described as half of its whole case. What the city filed from that file, two months after the warrant, were two petty misdemeanors about a hallway. What it has now is none.
The charges. Without prejudice means the city could file the same two misdemeanors again, within two years of the offense under Utah’s limitations statute, which runs to December 2027. It also means the city chose, with a courtroom booked, defense counsel on the other side and a national outlet cleared to stream, to end the case rather than argue it, and to give “the interest of justice” as its whole reason. No court found anything. Nothing about December 10 was tried, and nothing was proved either way. The advisement Schneider received at arraignment, that a conviction could enhance the penalty for any later offense, no longer attaches to anything.
The warrant. The Google warrant was served in February, with Google under orders to say nothing for 90 days. Whatever Google produced, the contents of a Gmail account and the records of a YouTube channel with hundreds of thousands of subscribers, went to Provo police for an investigation of attempted extortion and commercial obstruction. Neither was charged. The only case the file ever produced is now dismissed. So the material sits with a police department that has no prosecution to use it in, taken from a journalist’s publishing platform under a theory no prosecutor adopted. This site reported in July what the affidavit got wrong on its face: it recorded the CEO’s home as the scene of a confrontation that happened at BAM’s office, and it presented a named defendant in BAM’s own lawsuit as a stranger with no connection to it. What Provo does with the data now, whether it is returned, destroyed or kept, is a question the dismissal makes live and the record does not answer.
The records. While the case was open, records from the police file could be withheld as part of an active adjudication. That reason is gone. The warrant’s return, the inventory of what Google sent, the reports and the body-worn camera from the December 10 arrest at BAM’s office can be asked for again. Chris Reports Things says he will.
The civil case. The theory the affidavit carried, that asking BAM for money over the Mansell consignment was extortion, is the theory BAM’s verified complaint carries into federal court. The Provo file was the one place a prosecutor looked at it. The prosecutor charged none of it, charged two petty misdemeanors instead, and has now let those go, four days before the deadline for Schneider’s motion asking the federal court whether the suit targets protected speech.
The complainant. By the affidavit’s own account, it was the company’s owner who contacted the detective on February 9 asking to pursue charges, and a Brimhall, reported to be the chief financial officer’s son, who supplied the unsigned statement the company later called half its case. BAM asked for this prosecution. Provo has now dropped every charge that came of it. BAM has said nothing about that, as it has said nothing about anything else since Saturday.
The American Fork matter is a separate case in the Fourth District Court, No. 261401094: stalking, a class A misdemeanor, and targeted residential picketing, a class B, from March 8 to 11, before Judge Thomas Low, with a pretrial protective order in place since May. Its next hearing is September 30, in person, and the prosecution expects to call witnesses, according to Chris Reports Things, who says Law & Crime plans to send someone. Friday is the anti-SLAPP deadline in BAM’s federal suit against Schneider. And BAM’s week, as reported this evening, is a locator that deletes open stores and a promise of decisive action with nothing behind it. The criminal case it helped start is the one thing that has actually been decided.
Court times are Provo time, Mountain Daylight.
Sources. Provo City v. Schneider, No. 261000376: the case history as printed by the court on September 14, the city’s motion of September 10, the order of September 14 and the media coverage order of September 9, all retrieved from the court by Chris Reports Things, who posted the order and his account of it on Reddit on September 14 and whose document archive holds the full set; hosted here with hashes. The Google warrant and its affidavit, reported July 8; the witness statements, reported July 11; the trespass charge, reported August 4. The American Fork case, No. 261401094, from its docket. The September 30 hearing and the witness expectation, per Chris Reports Things, September 14.