Tax Evaders Guilty of Plot to Kill Feds

(AP)  A couple were convicted Thursday on all counts of plotting to kill federal agents during a nine-month standoff at their fort-like rural home, where they had holed up to avoid arrest on tax evasion.

Ed and Elaine Brown, both in their 60s, face a mandatory minimum 30-year prison sentence on one charge alone.

The Browns holed up in their hilltop home in New Hampshire in early 2007 to avoid arrest after being convicted of tax evasion. They amassed an arsenal of high-powered weapons and explosives, including booby-traps in woods surrounding the home.

During the trial, Ed Brown testified that the weapons were for self-defense, saying he believed the government planned to kill him and his wife. The two were arrested in October 2007 without incident.

In court Thursday, the couple held hands and looked straight ahead as the verdict was read. They refused to stand when the jury and judge left the courtroom. Defense lawyers declined to comment.

The prosecution denounced the Browns' behavior behind their crimes.

"By rejecting the rule of the law and substituting a personal code involving weapons, explosives and threats, the defendants committed increasingly serious crimes," acting U.S. Attorney Michael Gunnison said. "Their conduct has no place in a civil society."

The Browns are scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 3.

The verdict came after seven hours of deliberation over two days.

[Speakout]

It would be amazing some year if the media kids wrote the whole story about things like this, and didn't just retype the propaganda some alphabet division drone sent them. The spin on the story here, the careful choice of all the wrong words in place of the right ones, ??by intent?? is enough to make me wanna puke. Well how could they allow the ordinary person to read the whole truth and expect them to remain complacent, to never ask the questions about what really went on, in and out of the courtroom?
Propaganda at it's best. Too bad there aren't anything but gutless wonders left in the media in this country.

[Larose77]

Unfortunately it still appears that many people don't understand what the Federal Reserve is, what Fractional Reserve Lending is and why there even is an income tax - which IS fully illegal. The Fed is private, not public and legally counterfeits your national currency - that means that it prints money and then charges you real, produced value to "pay them back" for the "loan" of fake money, paid back by real value.

The Fed loans the government money, this is illegal, the US constitution says printing money is sole preserve of the US treasury and it should be debt-free money at that.

Unfortunately, the Fed has a monopoly on money and produces it at no cost, but reaps trillions of dollars in profit for this "service" which enslaves us all with huge public debts.

The answer is to kill the Fed, as Ron Paul and many others going back centuries have suggested, and to replace fractional reserve lending, the process whereby commercial banks also lend money they don't have (another form of counterfeit) thereby hugely inflating the money supply and causing 90% of all inflation (as opposed to say - rising wages from unionization) with full reserve lending.

Income tax was created to make the public pay for the debts the Fed was predicted to generate, the sole purpose of the income tax is to pay off the Fed. Kill the Fed and you kill the tax, liberating huge amounts of productivity for bigger and better things. Learn your constitution people and learn Banking!

[teshere]

go watch America: Freedom to Fascism!!!!

This incarceration is complete BS. Our founding fathers wrote the Constitution to fight against this very thing. A government that consist of TYRANTS and TRAITORS!!! They are puppets and you ill informed ignorant sheep that call yourself citizens need to turn off the American Idol and get off you fat A$$es and fight for what this nation was intended to stand for!

[vsnow153]

IS ANY ONE HERE EDUCATED ON WHAT TAXES REALLY PAY FOR ? You all sound like Your education is born strictly from what the brain washing mass media wants you to believe. FACT IS : TAXES barely pay the interest rate on the 11.5 TRILLION dollar debt the US GOV is in. So no.. taxes do not "pay for" the upkeep of the country. Our country is owned by an international bank cartel who OWNS U.S. Citizens as bank collateral. WAKE UP. GROW UP. EDUCATE YOURSELF. These people who refused taxes have a point. NOT THE LEAST OF THESE IS THIS ::::: THERE ARE CURES TO CANCER AIDS & dis EASE which the GOVT has kept hidden while U.S. Citizens suffer & die. Should YOU pay taxes to a government that is denying you your CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS to LIFE LIBERTY & THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS ? Time to stop being SHEEP & start being smart, PEOPLE.
www.causes.com/thecuresoflifeandlight

[NoTax]

The Grace Commission during the Reagan administration investigated the federal income tax and reached the conclusion that the majority of our income taxes were taken by the Federal Reserve as interest on the national debt which is created by them by printing paper money out of thin air. Its the greatest scam to ever be perpetuated on the American people. Those who don't mind giving up four to five months of their salary to the banking crooks are either ignorant or just plain dumb.

The income tax does not pay for roads or services for the American people. It is nothing more than stealing the fruits of your labor, giving that earning to elitist shysters who are printing our currency into notes which will become as worthless as Zimbabwe money.

Ed and Elaine Brown are heroes for taking a stand not only for themselves but for the rest of us. The Federal Reserve and the IRS are criminal organizations. But hey, keep paying them if you love your servitude.

[rogee53]

First of all, most of you don't know the situation. These two were professional people, and the owed just over 4 million dollars in taxes. They had just one simple question, the same one I have, where is the law. Thousands of people, like me, have written the IRS, called them up, and have walked into H+R Block and asked, where in US Code, Title 26, does it say that you and I owe federal income tax. Look up the IRS explanation of Income, it doesn'it mean what you make in cash or payroll check, it means Business profits.

Ed and his wife asked that same question for over 5 years and got no answer. I have yet to get an answer. But it is very simple.

If the IRS would quit shoving guns in our faces, and show us where in the TAX CODE it says you and I have to pay taxes, in court, where every reporter and TV station will see it, then we would all pay with no problem. But they haven't, because they can't, and it is that simple.

For those of you that will write I am a nut case, then you show me the law, and I will shut-up.

[MsLiberty1984]

Don't defend yourself! Only the COPS are allowed weapons! How DARE YOU! See only POLITICIANS and those entrenched in the "system" (Obama's cabinet) are allowed to not pay taxes! The ascended on their home like they were going to a Columbian drug lords home. They only did not pay their taxes...

[valeriusjames]

The comments I read here are most disappointing. During the revolution, the British were first called the ?Regulars?, as despite what common opinion might be, the founders of the country were British, and fighting the British would parallel fighting our soldiers and cops of today. Later after continued oppressions, they were called more derogatory terms such as ?Red Coats? and ?Lobster backs?. Giving the ill support or remorse here shown for the Browns fighting for their rights, without committing any acts of violence, it could be said that a name most suiting for the many of this audience, would substitute Yellow for Red, and Crabs for Lobsters, in a bucket called ?American Tyranny?.

Having argued to the highest courts of my State, (ordinary guy, like you), partly in the area of taxation, I can assure that our tax laws are illegal, criminal and almost, non existent and is enforced by what is known as the ?color of law?. To which has been admitted by the highest of our leaders, to include presidential candidate Ron Paul. (in documentary ?Freedom to fascism? which the director died making) What disturbs me most is not that this fact many of us do not know, for how could we, but rather that many do not care to rebut something of substance with anything more than a giggle, which is merely a self defensive mechanism to ensure the preservation of our docile air conditioned reality.

Regardless if you have the desire or capacity of learning anything contrary to you omniscience views; I would like you to know that the Boston Tea party began with a revolt of a 3% tax on Tea, which was legal tax upon the people, yet you all pay over %50 in income taxes to the federal government (which includes %14 FICA), who?s legality is in question and according to ?Grace Committee? under Regan which found that ?all individual income tax revenues are gone before ?one nickel is spent on the services taxpayers expect from government?, in addition to state sales taxes, property taxes, other excises taxes, etc. The real question you should ask yourself is not whether you are legally required to pay income taxes, but rather if it is wrong to do so? For the founders of this country not only revolted as a result of the legality of laws, but more importantly the justness of them. Which you should think of next when you ignorantly wrap yourself in a flag you care to know nothing about, which is come to be a symbolic worship akin to a fans celebration of a sports team no matter the quality of their game.

That said, before you giggle yourself to sleep tonight; know that many of you have merely been taught rumors of the founders of this country, but are unaware that most of us are nothing like them. If you think you can battle this tyranny by merely casting a ballot, ask yourself when have your vote counted for anything? It didn?t stop 14 trillion TARP (not 700 billion!) despite universal decent, it doesn?t close our borders, it didn?t bring our troops home, it doesn?t stop warrentless searches and torture, it didn?t lower our taxes, no matter who?s in office. Instead, it gets you perpetual war, endless spending, and taxes on carbon dioxide, which is the very air we breathe!

And for those who are still laughing, I end with paraphrase of a story a friend once said to Benjamin Frankin.

?You?re right, you?re always right, and you know what that means? You will never be smatter than you are right now.?

If that doesn?t make you want to learn more, nothing will. For everyone else, take no offense at my dissent, I?m just ?Mad as hell, and I?m not going to take it anymore!!!!?

[gunownerdan]

"Today we need a nation of minute men; citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.
The cause of liberty, the cause of American, cannot succeed with any lesser effort."
- President John F. Kennedy, January 29, 1961

[cs4466]

Don't disappoint me, wingnut. I fully expect to see your wanted poster in the Post Office soon!

[John_Merritt]

They sound like that husband - wife team from the movie 'Tremors'. What was the real crime? The tax evasion, the booby traps in the woods, the high powered weapons, or the threat on Federal Employee's?

They might have had only short sentences and been out in a couple years. Do they have couples prisons here in the U.S because these two were made for each other? I think they are sharing one brain and may not survive without each other.

Moral of the story: You can be ticked at whoever you want, but don't threaten anybody, especially if they are Federal Employee's. Big mistake.