Ed and Elaine Brown arrested

[Demosthenes]

No injuries at all.

More soon.

[Dezcad]

U.S. Marshal: Convicted Tax Evaders Arrested
Last Edited: Thursday, 04 Oct 2007, 10:53 PM EDT
Created: Thursday, 04 Oct 2007, 10:53 PM EDT

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- The U.S. Marshal's office in New Hampshire says that convicted tax evaders Ed and Elaine Brown have been arrested at their home in Plainfield without incident.

The couple had been convicted on federal tax charges in January. They refused to turn themselves in to authorities when they were sentenced in April and have been holed up in their rural, fortress-like home since.

"The Browns may now begin serving their 63-month federal prison terms," said U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier. "High profile situations like this are always difficult, but they don't have to be tragic. I'm glad no one was injured, and that the community remained safe throughout the operation."
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[webhick]

Christmas came early this year!

[Nikki]

October 4, 2007 - 11:54pm

By KATHY McCORMACK
Associated Press Writer

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - A couple convicted of tax evasion were arrested peacefully at their Plainfield home Thursday night after holing up at the fortress-like compound for months, the U.S. Marshals Service said.

Ed and Elaine Brown were convicted on federal tax charges in January and refused to turn themselves in to authorities when they were sentenced in April to five years and three months in prison.

It was not immediately clear how they were taken into custody.

"We had no indication that the Browns intended to voluntarily surrender, so we had to move forward with an operation that promised the safest possible outcome. That day was today," U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier said in a news release.

Ed Brown, 65, and his wife, 67, have claimed the federal income tax is not legitimate.

Earlier this year, officials cut power and telephone service in an effort to ratchet up pressure on the couple convicted of scheming to avoid federal income taxes by hiding $1.9 million of income between 1996 and 2003.

After abandoning his federal trial and retreating to his home on 103 wooded acres, Ed Brown repeatedly said that any attempts to arrest him would result in a violent confrontation.

The home is on an isolated dirt road and includes a turret that offers a 360-degree view of the property and a driveway that is sometimes barricaded with sport utility vehicles.

Heavily armed police surrounded the home in June while they seized commercial property the couple owned in a neighboring town. SWAT teams, military and explosives vehicles marshaled in the tiny town and sparked rumors of a raid.

The Marshals Service said it was only for surveillance.

The arrests "will be a relief to everyone in the community," state Agriculture Commissioner Stephen Taylor, a Plainfield resident, said Thursday night. "This has been such a distraction to everybody."

A message left for Elaine Brown's son, David Hatch-Bernier of Worcester, Mass., was not immediately returned.

[Famspear]

Ed Brown, Irwin Schiff, Larken Rose, Pete Hendrickson, and so on, and so on:

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar [ . . . ]
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

--T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"

[Demosthenes]

Stuff could get a little ugly in the next few days (see example below.)

Could I ask that if any of you see any threat of violence or revenge, implied or direct, please post it here and/or email it to me at jj at cheatingfrenzy dot com.

Old Buck
Oct 4 2007 9:19 PM

This site shows 5116 friends. How many of you are just going to sit back and do nothing and how many of you will take action. ed had a list of 50 most wanted . Will you act on that list and send the messsage,Loud and clear.

[gottago]

Hopefully, no one will be stupid enough to think that there is any action they can possibly take that will not lead to a negative outcome. From experience, I will never forget the first night I spent in a holding cell of the local county jail which is most likely where the Browns are tonight. You don't want to go there.

[Doktor Avalanche]

What?!? No shootout? No flaming structures? No ankle biting? Jeeze...allow me to contain my dissapointment for a minute.

Seriously, I'm glad they were brought in peacefully. Lord knows it could have turned ugly but I'm relieved it didn't.

[Doktor Avalanche]

Ed Brown, Irwin Schiff, Larken Rose, Pete Hendrickson, and so on, and so on:

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar [ . . . ]
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

--T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"

I suppose now you're going to have to update their Wiki accordingly, friend Famspear.

[Lambkin]

no one is going to do a damned thing to help the Browns

I wouldn't be surprised if the latte-sipping keyboard clickers stepped up their attempts to attack this web site. That is more their speed than a frontal assault on The Man.

I'm glad it didn't cost any lives aside from the six dimwits going to prison, but I wonder, what was the total cost of this buggy ride?

[LPC]

More coverage here:

CNN
Fox News
Union Leader
WMUR - text
WMUR - Google video

[LPC]

From the news reports I've read (and listened to), it appears that the Browns did NOT voluntarily surrender, but were taken into custody without incident.

Good work, Marshals!

[wserra]

Hear, hear.

[Nikki]

Time to open a new poll / contest:

What additional charges will be filed against them, how soon before a grand jury returns indictments, and how many more years are tacked onto their sentences?

[Nikki]

From the Fox News site

A spokesman for the marshal's office declined to comment further. Marshal Stephen Monier said in a news release that a press briefing was scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday at the U.S. District Courthouse in Concord.

Scoop -- keep us posted.

[Famspear]

Doktor Avalanche wrote:

I suppose now you're going to have to update their Wiki accordingly, friend Famspear.

Yes, I did that immediately, once I had confirmation (which of course came right here on this page - thanks!). My very first notice that this had happened actually came when another Wikipedia editor added a mention of the arrests last night to the Ed & Elaine Brown article - but with no sourcing. Of course, about an hour later I found the sourcing I needed right here.

Since it's Wikipedia, the article changes all the time, but you can see the article here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_and_Elaine_Brown

My sense is that the law enforcement people on this one deserve a very, very big set of congratulations -- and thanks -- from all people, and especially from people who believe in the rule of law.

[Nikki]

I think he finally received an answer to his "show me the law" challenge

[.]

What additional charges will be filed against them

Many.

how soon before a grand jury returns indictments

Very soon.

how many more years are tacked onto their sentences

A whole bunch. The possibility, based on the existing 63 month sentences, that both of them will die in prison will be turned into a certainty.

[Nikki]

And a dissenting opinion:

Ed and Elaine Brown, innocents behind bars
Another shameful day for America

by Mark Yannone

Though they were guilty of violating no law nor any principle, Ed and Elaine Brown were prosecuted, wrongfully convicted, and are now imprisoned by their neighbors and fellow Americans. After months of house arrest, they were arrested without incident at their home in Plainfield, New Hampshire, on Thursday, October 4.

For the next 63 months we will pay approximately $40,000 per year to keep two formerly productive Americans in prison. No one will benefit. Every one of us will lose. Yet millions of Americans lack the education even to sense that this is wrong, let alone understand why.

Our United States Constitution states clearly in the Thirteenth Amendment, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Yet America is a government-educated nation that embraces slavery without the slightest hint of comprehension.

He really should get his facts straight. It was ONE productive American and one leech.

[Demosthenes]

Tax evaders in custody, marshall says
Ed and Elaine Brown taken without trouble

By Margot Sanger-Katz
Monitor staff

October 05. 2007 1:20AM

U.S. Marshals arrested tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown at their Plainfield home yesterday, ending the couple's eight-month standoff without bloodshed. The Browns vowed never to be taken alive, but U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier said yesterday that both Browns were arrested without incident on their property around 7:45 p.m.

"The Browns may now begin serving their 63-month federal prison terms," Monier said in a written statement last night. A representative for the marshals refused to answer any questions about the arrests last night.

"High-profile situations like this are always difficult, but they don't have to be tragic. I'm glad no one was injured, and that the community remained safe throughout the operation," Monier said.

Marshals will hold a press briefing this morning to provide details about the arrests. According to the statement, the Browns have already been turned over to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to begin serving their sentences.

The Browns were convicted of a series of tax-related crimes in January and had both been sentenced in absentia to 63 months in prison. But they have avoided capture, remaining holed up in their solar powered concrete home for months, where they have made repeated public threats of violence and have entertained a large and rotating cast of supporters.

A jury found that the couple had conspired to hide the nearly $2 million that Elaine Brown earned as a dentist over nearly a decade, but the couple maintained that no law compelled them to pay federal income taxes. They described their lengthy standoff as a stand against an unjust court system that was keeping the truth about the tax system from most Americans.

The couple defended themselves at trial, promising to show jurors not only their innocence, but the truth of their legal views. When the judge showed them a copy of jury instructions in their case that they said ensured they could not get a fair trial, they stopped attending the proceedings.

Elaine Brown ultimately returned to court, but Ed Brown sent an e-mail to his friends warning that the situation was likely to turn into "another Waco."

Last night, word of the Browns' arrests began to spread on blogs and message boards where supporters communicate. In a message posted to Ed and Elaine's MySpace page, Jim Hobbs of Phoenix, who lived with the couple for several weeks this summer, wrote: "This site shows 5116 friends. How many of you are just going to sit back and do nothing and how many of you will take action. ed had a list of 50 most wanted. Will you act on that list and send the messsage, Loud and clear."

Marshals did not release any details about the Browns' capture or any additional charges they may face, but in a recent press briefing, Monier suggested that marshals were investigating the couple for new crimes related to their standoff.

"This was a tax case," he said in September, "but over the last seven months, the Browns have allegedly obstructed justice and encouraged others to assist them. Ed Brown has threatened to kill law enforcement officers and other government officials."

The Browns were active in the militia movement in the 1990s, training in a group called the Constitution Defense Militia. Ed Brown became a prominent spokesman for the movement after the Oklahoma City bombing, when he told national news organizations that the attack had been planned by federal agents to discredit the movement.

In recent years, he has served as the national head of the Constitution Rangers of the Continental Congress of 1776, an organization charged with holding law enforcement figures accountable to the constitution.

News of Ed Brown's stand quickly spread through the militia community and flowed to other groups as well. His case captured the imagination of many who believed the income tax system was illegitimate or felt the federal government had gone too far in interfering with individual liberties. The case also attracted the support of members of the local Free State Project, a group of New Hampshire libertarians hoping to transform the state's politics.

As Elaine Brown returned to court to complete her defense, supporters brought food, weapons and flags to the Brown home, which the couple had improved over several years. Their large home is fitted with solar panels, a woodstove and well, and was designed to function "off the grid." Ed Brown described the walls as built of 10-inch thick concrete for structural support, and a five-story watchtower afforded a 360 degree view of the hilltop property. At their bail hearing last May, the prosecutor described the improved home as "essentially a fortress."

Elaine Brown was freed on bail following her conviction, but fled to join her husband in late February. The couple have remained together ever since, and have both expressed their desire to die in support of their cause. Elaine Brown said that she could imagine only two ways they would leave the property, "either as a free man and as a free woman or in body bags."

Marshals have done little to block access to the couple's home, and the Browns have been visited by a number of local and out-of-state supporters. According to accounts from the Browns and the supporters themselves, they brought the couple food, cell phones and weapons, and helped them establish a presence on the internet that allowed them to communicate with like minded people elsewhere in the country. Since February, the couple has appeared nearly every weekday on an online radio show, where they have discussed their political beliefs and made several threats against federal officials As recently as yesterday, the couple used the show to discuss the possible utility of organizing assassination squads to target key government figures.

"That's what's going to have to happen worldwide," Ed Brown said.

The Browns have recently made mention of a list of targets being prepared in case they are harmed by authorities.

Marshals arrested four of the couple's most prominent helpers last month, charging them with federal felonies for helping the couple. All four are being held without bail until their trials, scheduled for November. Among other things, three of the supporters were charged with bringing the couple .50 caliber rifles, which shoot bullets capable of piercing body armor and are able to hit targets at long distances with great accuracy.

A fifth supporter was arrested this week by local authorities and is being held on bond for a number of driving-related offenses.

Visits to the property have quieted since the arrests, Elaine Brown said on the radio show yesterday.

"Locals don't come so much anymore," she said. "I guess the feds scared them off."

Monier did not say if quiet conditions at the property led to the timing of arrests, but his statement did say that he believed their arrests last night "promised the safest possible outcome."

The statement did not say whether the Browns were entertaining guests at the time of their arrest.

In June, marshals surrounded the Browns' home with state police SWAT teams, bringing helicopters, paramedics and an explosives disposal unit, but Monier denied that they were there to arrest the couple. Instead, he said marshals were performing surveillance on the couple while authorities seized the couple's commercial building 10 miles away. Marshals briefly detained and interrogated a Brown supporter who stumbled on a surveillance team that morning while walking the couple's dog.

But other than that incident, Monier has taken a low-key approach to the Brown case. He has frequently warned supporters that they are subject to prosecution for helping the couple, but marshals have rarely been visible near the house, and their communications with the couple were focused on persuading them to surrender, he said.