Tax Dodgers Taunt Police from Hilltop Compound
PLAINFIELD, New Hampshire (AP) -- To avoid serving prison sentences for tax evasion, Ed Brown and his wife, Elaine, have locked themselves off from the world on their own terms.
From behind the 8-inch concrete walls of their 110-acre hilltop compound, the couple taunt police and SWAT teams and play to reporters and government-haters with references to past standoffs that turned deadly.
Residents want the Browns' circus to end before their small town along the Connecticut River becomes the next Ruby Ridge or Waco.
The Browns raised the specter of the first case, the 1992 shootout at an Idaho property called Ruby Ridge, by holding a news conference Monday with Randy Weaver, whose wife and child were killed there along with a deputy U.S. marshal.
Ed Brown warned authorities they wouldn't take him alive: "We either walk out of here free or we die."
The Browns were sentenced in absentia to 63-month prison sentences in April, after being convicted of conspiring to evade taxes on nearly $1.9 million in Elaine Brown's income and of plotting to disguise large financial transactions.
Though they have refused to leave the compound, U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier insists he has no plans to raid it to make them serve their time and will instead seek a peaceful surrender.
Expert observers praise the authorities' hands-off approach, but patience is wearing thin for Plainfield's 2,400 residents. Town selectmen recently asked Monier to stop the influx of militiamen and other anti-government groups to the Browns' home and to bring the couple to justice.
"While we understand and support efforts to achieve a quiet resolution to this matter, the longer the Browns remain at large the better the chance, in our view, that our local police force will be involved in an incident with them or their group of supporters," the letter reads. "In short, we believe that it is time that definitive action be taken."
It's a sentiment echoed throughout the town.
"The people of Plainfield feel the whole thing has been mismanaged from the get-go," says Stephen Taylor, a Plainfield native who is state agriculture commissioner. "He's got this band of loonies up there right now. There's this constant traffic and helicopters overhead and everything. dirty crazies."
The town south of bustling Lebanon has a "live-and-let-live" reputation that no one wants linked to the Browns, Taylor said.
"Everybody feels a tiny bit of embarrassment. This is what we're going to be known for?" Taylor said. "We don't want to be known for this."
The Browns' home on an isolated dirt roads includes a turret that offers a 360-degree view of the property and a driveway that is sometimes barricaded with SUVs.
Ed Brown, a retired exterminator, and his wife, a dentist, have bragged that the compound is self-sufficient and capable of running entirely on solar, wind and geothermal energies.
While saying repeatedly that he has no interest in harming the Browns or their supporters, Monier has not said what he does plan to do.
He says the massive law enforcement turnout on June 7, complete with roadblocks and planes, was for surveillance of the compound while agents seized the Lebanon building that housed Elaine Brown's dental practice.
But Ed Brown and many town residents believe it was a botched raid that apparently had to be called off when someone walking a dog stumbled onto federal agents in camouflage near the home.
"We were much better off before the federal government tried to take him into custody and it didn't go well," fumed town administrator Steve Halleran. "The fervor had died down. That was one of the things we were hoping, that people would go on to other things. But that's all by the wayside."
Weaver's news conference with the couple only added to local frustrations.
"That must've been a first. We've never really seen convicted felons just be able to hold press conferences," Halleran said. "There has to be a restriction of access to and from their property. If people can continue to visit them, to bring them supplies, with diesel fuel and food, they can stay there for a long time."
Brown neighbor David Grobe, a former patient of Elaine Brown, just wants the dirt road to be silent again. He said satellite news trucks parked at a softball field for Monday's news conference at the same time residents wanted to play.
"This used to be a very quiet street," he said.
Sitting in lawn chairs around the Browns' long gravel driveway, the couple's supporters rail against Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Federal Reserve, the Vatican and the mainstream media.
Some defend the Browns' claim -- repeatedly rejected by courts -- that no law authorizes the federal income tax and that the 1913 constitutional amendment permitting it was never properly ratified.
"The income tax can take more than the Mafia can with a machine gun. Believe me," said Alfred Liseo of Meriden, Connecticut.
"The Mafia doesn't have popular support," interrupted Bill Walker. "The government has support of millions of ignorant people who have the wool pulled over their eyes. They think they need to pay. They don't."
Patriots or Crooks?
I'm lining up with crooks but part of me is rooting for them!
From behind the 8-inch concrete walls of their 110-acre hilltop compound, the couple taunt police and SWAT teams and play to reporters and government-haters with references to past standoffs that turned deadly.
Residents want the Browns' circus to end before their small town along the Connecticut River becomes the next Ruby Ridge or Waco.
The Browns raised the specter of the first case, the 1992 shootout at an Idaho property called Ruby Ridge, by holding a news conference Monday with Randy Weaver, whose wife and child were killed there along with a deputy U.S. marshal.
Ed Brown warned authorities they wouldn't take him alive: "We either walk out of here free or we die."
The Browns were sentenced in absentia to 63-month prison sentences in April, after being convicted of conspiring to evade taxes on nearly $1.9 million in Elaine Brown's income and of plotting to disguise large financial transactions.
Though they have refused to leave the compound, U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier insists he has no plans to raid it to make them serve their time and will instead seek a peaceful surrender.
Expert observers praise the authorities' hands-off approach, but patience is wearing thin for Plainfield's 2,400 residents. Town selectmen recently asked Monier to stop the influx of militiamen and other anti-government groups to the Browns' home and to bring the couple to justice.
"While we understand and support efforts to achieve a quiet resolution to this matter, the longer the Browns remain at large the better the chance, in our view, that our local police force will be involved in an incident with them or their group of supporters," the letter reads. "In short, we believe that it is time that definitive action be taken."
It's a sentiment echoed throughout the town.
"The people of Plainfield feel the whole thing has been mismanaged from the get-go," says Stephen Taylor, a Plainfield native who is state agriculture commissioner. "He's got this band of loonies up there right now. There's this constant traffic and helicopters overhead and everything. dirty crazies."
The town south of bustling Lebanon has a "live-and-let-live" reputation that no one wants linked to the Browns, Taylor said.
"Everybody feels a tiny bit of embarrassment. This is what we're going to be known for?" Taylor said. "We don't want to be known for this."
The Browns' home on an isolated dirt roads includes a turret that offers a 360-degree view of the property and a driveway that is sometimes barricaded with SUVs.
Ed Brown, a retired exterminator, and his wife, a dentist, have bragged that the compound is self-sufficient and capable of running entirely on solar, wind and geothermal energies.
While saying repeatedly that he has no interest in harming the Browns or their supporters, Monier has not said what he does plan to do.
He says the massive law enforcement turnout on June 7, complete with roadblocks and planes, was for surveillance of the compound while agents seized the Lebanon building that housed Elaine Brown's dental practice.
But Ed Brown and many town residents believe it was a botched raid that apparently had to be called off when someone walking a dog stumbled onto federal agents in camouflage near the home.
"We were much better off before the federal government tried to take him into custody and it didn't go well," fumed town administrator Steve Halleran. "The fervor had died down. That was one of the things we were hoping, that people would go on to other things. But that's all by the wayside."
Weaver's news conference with the couple only added to local frustrations.
"That must've been a first. We've never really seen convicted felons just be able to hold press conferences," Halleran said. "There has to be a restriction of access to and from their property. If people can continue to visit them, to bring them supplies, with diesel fuel and food, they can stay there for a long time."
Brown neighbor David Grobe, a former patient of Elaine Brown, just wants the dirt road to be silent again. He said satellite news trucks parked at a softball field for Monday's news conference at the same time residents wanted to play.
"This used to be a very quiet street," he said.
Sitting in lawn chairs around the Browns' long gravel driveway, the couple's supporters rail against Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Federal Reserve, the Vatican and the mainstream media.
Some defend the Browns' claim -- repeatedly rejected by courts -- that no law authorizes the federal income tax and that the 1913 constitutional amendment permitting it was never properly ratified.
"The income tax can take more than the Mafia can with a machine gun. Believe me," said Alfred Liseo of Meriden, Connecticut.
"The Mafia doesn't have popular support," interrupted Bill Walker. "The government has support of millions of ignorant people who have the wool pulled over their eyes. They think they need to pay. They don't."
Patriots or Crooks?
I'm lining up with crooks but part of me is rooting for them!
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i posted a video about this a while back, there was no police involvement then, but i would have to say, if he never ever ever used a public service, he shouldnt have to pay taxes, but if he did, use any type of public service at all, tax him. 0 -
quote:"The people of Plainfield feel the whole thing has been mismanaged from the get-go," says Stephen Taylor, a Plainfield native who is state agriculture commissioner. "He's got this band of loonies up there right now. There's this constant traffic and helicopters overhead and everything. dirty crazies."
which band of loonies is he refering to? the cops?
No man is an island.
why waste so much tax dollars confining him to his estate, they will easily spend 2 mil in short time and he is not a danger to the community.
they will get hungry and come out, or die of starvation/old age and the state can take the property then.
I hear the law was never ratified, but people have been paying taxes so long it is now emenent domain, if they never paid taxes they may have a case but like your 5th ammendment right it can be forfet if you say anything.0 -
quote:Originally posted by SuburbanNoize
i posted a video about this a while back, there was no police involvement then, but i would have to say, if he never ever ever used a public service, he shouldnt have to pay taxes, but if he did, use any type of public service at all, tax him.
As far as I understand, he's protesting individual federal income tax. All "public services" are funded form other forms of taxation, primarily indirect taxes. One can of course argue, that everything goes into the same pot and out of there everything is appropriated, so yeah, technically by driving on a interstate highway you'd be using public service, but then again, where do taxes on gasoline go?0 -
everything goes into the same pot and out of there everything is appropriated 0 -
JK[;)] 0 -
Sounds like all the poor couple wants is their own media circus.
Gosh, can't we just leave them in peace?
Oh, that's right. They didn't want to be left in peace. They wanted a freakin' media circus!
Tools.
So here's my take. I don't want to pay taxes, either.
But I don't want to go to jail worse.
Seems like an easy decision for me. But what do I know?
I'm just a sheeple who wakes evey morning, glad to my marrow that I live in the USA, not Gabon or Nicaragua and am willing to pay the price for it. Yeah, call the Browns "Freedom-loving Individualists" if you want, but the plain fact is, they're freeloaders. They're leeches that want to suck at the teat of Freedom and don't want to pay for it.
Ya wanna live off the grid in a beautiful wilderness? Fine. Pack your crap and disappear into the jungle.
But, hey. That's just my opinion.0 -
I never have learned what you can get away with NOT paying and what you HAVE to pay. I understand you can declare something and be exempt from taxes from that day on....but to just NOT pay and say it is acceptable to not do so after the fact I haven't seen play out for anyone EVER. 0 -
She made 1.9 million ! Poor folks can't afford to pay taxes. 0 -
Thanks for posting that story. I hadn't heard of this.
"We either walk out of here free or we die."
The New Hampshire state motto, which is on the license plates, is "Live Free or Die."0 -
They are lucky there were no bad cops dispatched [}:)][}:)][}:)][}:)][}:)][}:)][}:)][}:)][}:)][}:)][}:)][}:)][}:)][}:)]! 0 -
All access to the property should be cut off. With no food, no media access, etc. they will either die or come out. Good outcome either way. 0 -
They will starve em out. I think they already cut power to the place. Aint no such thing as a free ride. 0 -
I'm afraid it will end with a bloodbath,
the Feds haven't made an example out of anyone lately...0 -
...Affirmitive on the no access to these loons. While I'm somewhat in agreement with Matt about a part of me is rooting for them, it doesn't change the fact they broke the law, maybe a bad law, but a law none the less.
...Yeah, I'm with most people that think the IRS is a rogue out of control agency but that does not change the fact these people have broken exsisting laws.
...These people are demonstrating the typical Libertarian "think". I USED to know a die hard Libertarian that could SHOW you in print, LAW/LEGAL books that right there in black and white, proved out some of his wild (to me anyway) ideas about laws.
...Example: You do not need a drivers license, license plates, insurance, obey speed limits, and on and on and on. Posted speed limits are on the books for "Interstate Commerce Transportation of Goods", they do not apply otherwise to a personal vehicle not engaged in this pursuit.
...This guy has not got his truck inspected, licensed, or held a valid drivers license in YEARS! Did he get a gazillion citations, yep! Spent 30 days in the Rockwall city jail for contempt a time or two also. NOW, after every cop, sheriff know who he is and how he feels...and that he drags a library of books to court to defend himself (and WINS![:0])...the LEO's leave him alone!! If a DPS Trooper gets him, the city/county of Rockwall will not prosecute/file on him or whatever, because they know the guy will baffle them with BS and walk! I have never seen anything like it.
...Believe it or not, Ive seen the judge stop in the middle of a hearing when he starts to pull out some of these old legal books and call everybody involved into his chambers and then comes out and dissmisses the charges/tickets! He is a criminal in the fact that he does not consider traffic laws legal, as far being a good man, yes he is, well was, the last contact I had with him a few years ago
...I would almost bet if I gave his full name, David would recognize the name, since he is in David's vicinity.
...He says you are susposed to have your Miranda rights read if you are pulled over for a traffic violation, otherwise if you recieve a ticket w/o being given your Miranda rights, the citation is not valid. Reasoning? If you are ever "arrested", you are read your rights, and when you get pulled over by a cop your motion is "arrested", so...you technicaly have been "arrested" (!) and you should be read your Miranda rights! I know, sounds ludicrous, whacked out, but he has used this as a defense umpteen times, and wins, I have seen it happen, amazing.
...Don't ask me anout the "details" of this bizarro world crap, as I don't know 'em, but I do know what Ive seen, and it's strange; maybe the libertarians are on to something about this "law" stuff, and a lot of laws have been twisted and perverted and we are just "conditioned" to accept some of them as actually legal when there not, don't know.
...Ron Paul is a Libertarian, and just as fanatical in beliefs such as these...guess he should show up and hang out for some camera time.
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Cut them off from the outside world.
If they can live on what they have in the compound then fine. Set up some jamming equipment so they don't have any contact with the outside. Seize all property and holdings to pay for the cost of the stand off. Use some Reservists, if we still have any left here, on a rotation that is normal with their drill times. Don't activate them for more than they are in a normal year. Mount cameras so that all of the area is videoed. Anyone inside that does something that is in anyway a threat to the guys outside gets shot.
Yes, it's a bit extreme but it will send a message that the Feds are not going to be pushed around. Go ahead and flame me about the "Jack Boot Thugs" taking over if we let them.0 -
Boy are they living up to their State Motto:
"Live Free or Die"
America should follow them.
The SOLE reason the States bonded together to form a Federal Govt.....was for the Federal Govt. to protect the States.
The Federal military failed. 20+ million invaders are in the country and rising.
Why pay?0 -
Bulldoze the interances to the compound. Eventually they will walk to
town and get taken in. Take the Feds and put them doing something usefull like keeping out Illegals and deporting them. The Feds want to start a invasion there instead of stopping our Border Invasions. I wonder which is the most important.0
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