On the surface, Thomas Langenbach had it all. A $2 million home with a killer view high up in the hills of San Carlos, California; a wife; two children; a nanny; and a prestigious job at technology giant SAP.

But when police searched his home on May 8, they found something else: meticulously sorted bins filled with Lego pieces, and hundreds of Lego toys, some displayed next to bottles of booze on the family bar, others snapped together in front of a whiteboard as if they were being staged for photography. And many more were in boxes, jammed into an office closet.

There were 46 boxes of a lava-like Lego creature called Magma Monster, 35 boxes from Lego