Ed and Elaine Brown Finally Jailed

Two crooks, who hid income from the IRS to avoid paying taxes on it, and then hid out in their New Hampshire compound, vowing to resist violently if they were confronted, were collared by US Marshals posing as kook right-fringe supporters.

The Browns’ home was turned into a fortified bunker all so they wouldn’t have to pay taxes.

Dan Riehl notes that had a Democrat been in office, this would have ended much sooner, just like Waco or Ruby Ridge. But it ended peacefully.

From Fox News here:

U.S. marshals posing as supporters arrested convicted tax-evaders Ed and Elaine Brown at their rural, fortress-like home, the head marshal said Friday.

“They invited us in, and we escorted them out,” U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier said, releasing the first details of Thursday night’s arrests.

A small team of marshals pulled off the ruse, arresting the Browns without incident on the front porch of their Plainfield home in west-central New Hampshire, Monier said.

The arrests ended a months-long standoff that began in January, when Brown, 65, a retired exterminator, and his dentist wife, 67, walked out of their federal trial in Concord. She returned to the trial but soon joined her husband at home, where they vowed to resist violently if authorities tried to arrest them.

“We either walk out of here free or we die,” Ed Brown said.

At a news conference, Monier said officials found booby traps in the woods on the 100-plus-acre property and weapons, ammunition and homemade bombs inside and outside the house. He said more charges are likely.

The Browns were turned over to federal corrections officials to serve prison terms of 63 months. They were convicted in January of scheming to avoid federal income taxes by hiding $1.9 million of income between 1996 and 2003 and were sentenced in April.

The couple claims the federal income tax is not legitimate. Their argument — repeatedly rejected by courts — is that no law authorizes the federal income tax and that the 1913 constitutional amendment permitting it was never properly ratified.

Several kooks claim that income tax is illegal, including Wesley Snipes. As much as I wish that were true, it just isn’t. Kudos to law enforcement for defusing a potentially bad situation.