- CONCORD, N.H. - 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.
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- 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. <snipt>
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