http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070119/REPOSITORY/701190338/1029/OPINION03
Thanks for your reports by Kate Davidson and Margot Sanger-Katz? on the Brown case. Generally (and despite the outrages in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and the Patriot Act) Americans hold a high opinion of our justice system. Yet in Ed Brown we see a man so disgusted with its bias that he says he would rather die than be subject further to its jurisdiction.
I hope your remaining coverage will focus on the facts (more than the opinions) of whether he has reason behind a stance that is clearly either very foolhardy or very brave.
He has stated, for example, that Judge McAuliffe? has refused to allow him to present witnesses in his defense. Is that true? If it is even partly true, the U.S. justice system and McAuliffe? in particular owe him a profound apology along with an immediate acquittal.
He has said that he presented some 40 motions to this court, yet the judge dismissed them all without reply. Possibly some of them were foolish - I have no idea. But all 40? Why not publish them, so that your readers can see what this case is about, and whether McAuliffe? was at all justified to wave them away.
And Ed Brown has said that there is no law obliging him or anyone else to pay a tax on what is earned, by him or anyone else - which appears to be what his trial is all about. Is that true? What specific laws have the prosecution identified to counter that remarkable claim, which would affect us all? And what exactly do their words mean, in context?
Some of your readers would like to know, for if justice is being done here, it should be very clearly seen to be done.
By MARGOT SANGER-KATZ
Monitor Staff
May 25. 2006 8:00AM
A husband-and-wife pair of self-described militia members from Plainfield was arrested yesterday and charged with evading more than half a million dollars in federal income taxes.
Elaine A. Brown, a dentist with a practice in Lebanon, was indicted in New Hampshire U.S. District Court on charges of tax evasion, conspiracy, disguising large financial transactions and failing to collect employment taxes from her employees, a total of 21 felonies. Her husband, Edward Lewis Brown, was indicted on charges of conspiracy and hiding financial transactions, eight felonies total. Both Browns pleaded not guilty at their arraignments yesterday.
Bill Morse, the assistant United States attorney handling the case, said that he believed Edward Brown was "heavily armed and dangerous" and should be held without bail until the couple's trials in July. He described the badge Brown wears as a national commander of The Constitutional Rangers of the Continental Congress of 1777 and the 35 guns that Brown says he owns. Morse said recent improvements to the Browns' home made it "essentially a fortress." He also repeated a series of inflammatory statements that Brown has made to newspaper reporters, local police officers and FBI agents who have interviewed him.
"He believes the federal government is plotting to take all of our freedoms away," Morse said
Magistrate James Muirhead disagreed and released both Browns on the condition that they relinquish all of their firearms, submit to searches of their home and refrain from entertaining guests with guns. A probation officer was sent with Dr. Brown to locate and remove the guns in the house before her husband was released.
Over the last decade, Edward Brown, a retired cockroach exterminator, has claimed membership in several anti-government militia groups including the Constitution Rangers of the Continental Congress of 1777, the Constitution Defense Militia, and the Unamerican Activities Investigations Commission, which he founded.
In 1996, Brown said that he believed the federal government was responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing and became a prominent spokesman for militia groups, appearing in Time magazine, Newsday, and the Los Angeles Times. He also made an unsuccessful run for the New Hampshire Legislature that year.
Dr. Brown has been less vocal about her militia involvement, but Morse said she was also a member of the Constitution Defense Militia. Court records suggest that she earned several hundred thousand dollars each year from her dental practice.
From 1999 to 2003, the Browns also refused to pay the school portion of their property taxes in Plainfield and Lebanon, until tax liens threatened the deeds to their home and business, according to newspaper accounts and the Plainfield tax collector. In February 2003, Edward Brown told the Connecticut Valley Spectator that their non-payment was an act of civil disobedience against a school system that was indoctrinating children in "Communism, humanism, bigtime, homosexuality and cultural-political engineering," in violation of the constitution.
Four months later, the Browns paid their back taxes. But it wasn't because Edward Brown changed his mind, another Spectator article said, but because "he wanted to avoid a deadly confrontation that he said would result if the town or city attempted to seize his property."
According to the indictment, Dr. Brown, 65, has not paid any income tax since 1999, when she and her husband, 63, conspired to funnel her practice's proceeds into a trust. The couple is also accused of splitting large financial transactions through postal money orders in order to avoid laws that require reporting any transactions of more than $10,000. Dr. Brown is accused of failing to withhold or pay the income taxes of her practice's employees.
The document says the Browns wrote to the Internal Revenue Service on several occasions to say they believed income taxes were voluntary and they would not pay "until a 'full and proper' investigation proves the legitimacy of the IRS."
During the five years the Browns allegedly did not pay taxes, Dr. Brown earned more than $1.3 million in income, the indictment says.
If convicted, the Browns face a maximum sentence of five years in prison and $250,000 fine for each evasion and conspiracy charge, and 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine for each structuring offense. The government also wants to seize their home and the building that houses Dr. Brown's business. A judge granted a restraining order requiring the couple to keep and maintain the buildings until the case is resolved.
Both Browns were armed at the time of their arrest. According to Morse, witnesses say that Brown always keeps a pistol tucked in the waistband of his pants and does not fly because he is unwilling to give up his weapon.
"Brown has been known to boast that he would never allow his gun to be removed from his person while he was alive," read a court document filed by prosecutors.
Morse said witnesses have also reported that Brown has night vision goggles, body armor, and told the Plainfield police he has access to "special weapons."
Morse would not say how long the justice department has been investigating the Browns, but court documents refer to a search warrant of Dr. Brown's Lebanon business executed in November 2004. At that time, court documents allege, a few militia members arrived and told Edward Brown that 300 more were willing to help him defend his property. Brown instructed them to "stand down,"the document said.
In court yesterday, the Browns were indicted separately, but the courtroom staffed double the usual number of bailiffs for both hearings.
Elaine Brown appeared composed, in a skirt and a long knit jacket. Morse agreed with a probation department recommendation that she be released as long as she complied with bail conditions that included surrendering her weapons.
Edward Brown's arraignment was lengthier. He appeared in leg shackles, wearing a dark leather jacket. When he entered the courtroom, he immediately turned to the gallery full of IRS officers, probation officers and federal marshals and grimaced. He then argued briefly with his appointed attorney.
When the judge asked Brown whether he understood the charges against him, he replied, "Not too well." Muirhead decided to settle for Brown's understanding of the penalties he faced if convicted.
Muirhead was not persuaded by Morse's arguments that Edward Brown was dangerous or posed a flight risk. He said that there was nothing illegal about the threats Brown had made or the weapons he's alleged to own.
"He has a right to say what he has said, though this judge may not agree with it," he said .
At several points in the hearing, Morse referred to statements Brown made in interviews with the FBI. But after the hearing he told a reporter that he could not comment on any FBI investigation. The investigation that led to the current charges was a joint endeavor of the IRS, the Postal Inspection Service, and the U.S. Marshals, with assistance from state police, and the Plainfield and Lebanon police departments. The Browns are scheduled for trial on July 18.
By MARGOT SANGER-KATZ
Monitor staff
June 11. 2006 10:00AM
Ed and Elaine Brown of Plainfield say that no law requires them to pay income taxes. They have been charged with tax evasion and face more than 30 years in prison. A trial on the charges is set for next month.
In 1993, a friend of Christopher Gronski's gave him a book that changed his life. Gronski, of Wolfeboro, was a glass cleaner: a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen. But Vultures in Eagle's Clothing: Lawfully Breaking Free from Ignorance Related Slavery, he said, showed that the government was pulling the wool over his eyes -that the law didn't require him to pay taxes, and that government officials were keeping this and other injustices from most Americans.
"I read it, and I was outraged. We were filing and paying as anyone is, and I talked to my wife and said, 'What are we going to do? Here's the truth of this,'" he said. "We began this journey, and we've been in correspondence with the IRS ever since."
Gronski has not filed a tax return or paid any income tax for 10 years.
These days, Gronski is the New Hampshire coordinator for a national organization called We The People, which encourages its members to spread the word about what it considers the legal vulnerabilities of tax law. It's one of dozens of groups across the country that believe the law doesn't require most people to pay the federal income tax and that the government is conspiring to keep that knowledge from being widely disseminated.
"Fear, tradition and ignorance are really what compel people to file and pay," Gronski said.
An IRS agent knocked on Gronski's door once to ask some questions, but so far Gronski has escaped punishment. That's not true of all tax protesters. Lynne Meredith, who wrote the book that persuaded Gronski, was convicted of several tax crimes last year and is serving a 10-year sentence.
Closer to home, Ed and Elaine Brown, a Plainfield couple who have been vocal in
their opposition to the income tax, were recently indicted on a series of conspiracy and tax evasion charges. Their trial is scheduled for July 18.
It's hard to track the numbers of people who do not file tax returns for ideological reasons. In part, that's because the IRS is barred by law from tracking protesters and because many non-filers keep their financial matters private. Nationally, experts say, there may be as many as 200,000 people who share these beliefs, or as few as tens of thousands.
"For every one of those individuals who is prosecuted criminally, who publicly advocates their opposition to the income tax on the same ground - for every one person like that, there are 7 to 10 people who agree with the same philosophy but who are just too chicken to break the law," said Daniel Levitas, who chronicled the history of the movement in his book The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement and the Radical Right. "One thing about the tax protest movement is it is not a fringe movement composed of a small segment of fanatics. It has the ability to recruit a large number of people."
In New Hampshire, the mix of traditional distrust of the federal government, dislike of taxation, and the new influx of anti-tax residents through the Free State Project have made it receptive to tax protest ideology, experts say. Using Levitas's reasoning, Granite State protesters could number in the hundreds, if not thousands. Gronski said We The People events in New Hampshire have drawn more than 300 participants. On an internet discussion board at Nhfree.com, a website oriented toward libertarians and free-staters, a thread called "Is it time to stop paying federal taxes?" includes 117 posts, with most writers saying either that they don't pay or are considering stopping.
Of course, not everyone who doesn't pay taxes does so for the same reasons. Some people don't pay for purely selfish reasons, hoping to pocket the money and evade detection. Others choose not to pay because they have moral objections to U.S. policy. According to Peggy Riley, an IRS spokeswoman, the number of nonpaying objectors usually increases during a war.
Dave Ridley, an editor from Keene who moved to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project, said he pays his taxes, though he finds it tough to stomach some of the federal programs his dollars support.
"Whatever else you can or cannot say about Ed Brown, he is not paying for torture," Ridley said. "He is not paying for shooting people in Iraq. He's not paying for the welfare state. And 60 percent of us are, painfully, paying for those things."
Myriad theories
Tax protesters are usually drawn into the movement through some combination of greed and political protest, but they differ from other non-filers in believing that they have a legal right not to pay. They use a variety of theories to explain their position. Some common contentions are:
? The income tax is "voluntary,"because of language on the 1040 instruction booklet.
? State citizens are not U.S. citizens under the constitution and need not pay.
? Labor cannot be taxed.
? Federal reserve notes don't count as income because our currency is not backed by gold or silver.
? Filing a return violates the Fourth Amendment's guarantees against unlawful searches.
? Filing a return might violate a filer's Fifth Amendment guarantee against incriminating himself.
? Taxes represent a form of slavery and are banned by the 13th Amendment.
? The 16th Amendment, which authorizes the federal income tax, is invalid because it was improperly ratified.
They also tend to share a view the government entraps people into paying, though they have different ideas about how to avoid liability. Some protesters say it's okay to file a tax return filled with zeros, or to claim so many exemptions that an employer doesn't have to withhold payroll taxes. Others say the simple act of filling out a tax return means you're entering a contract with the government. (They avoid filing any forms but instead send letters filled with questions and objections to the IRS.) These competing theories are reconciled inside the movement by an agreement that tax law has been made needlessly complex in an effort to keep people from investigating and finding the holes.
"I have looked at all that stuff, too, and the deeper you dig, the less it makes sense," said Russell Kanning, an editor of the Keene Free Press, who said he doesn't pay federal income taxes or the school portion of his property tax bill. Kanning said he initially stopped filing because he objected to the Iraq war, but now he's beginning to think his behavior is legally, as well as morally, correct. "They let us all be misinformed."
If the IRS is in the right, many protesters argue, why won't officials answer their legal questions? Ed Brown said he'd be willing to pay if the IRS provided a persuasive response to the questions he's been sending over the last decade. Gronski also said his letters have gone unanswered.
Robert Seaman, a We The People member from Concord, said he's been investigating tax laws for nearly 20 years and he's troubled by the government's unwillingness to answer questions. He files and pays his taxes, he said, because he's not sure whether he's legally obliged to do so, but he suspects that he may be exempt.
"Obviously, there's something they don't want the general public to know about," he said.
But tax lawyers and other experts say none of the tax protest arguments has a firm legal basis. The tax code may be long and confusing, they say, but it's clear that state citizens can be taxed, that labor can be taxed and that the system isn't voluntary. They say there's plenty of evidence in court decisions and in IRS publications to answer protester questions, but activists simply reject most evidence that doesn't support their views.
Daniel Evans, a Philadelphia estate lawyer who's made a hobby of following tax protest cases, said it's nearly impossible to persuade protesters their arguments may be flawed. He maintains a website with common tax protest arguments and explanations about why they aren't true.
"I spend a certain amount of time trying to argue with these people one-on-one, and it's like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall," he said. "It's just one argument after another after another, and after awhile, you wonder if there are that many arguments, if the income tax is so defective, if there are 20 or 30 reasons - what is the reason that it has survived for the last 100 years?"
IRS officials dismiss tax protest arguments as "frivolous." The agency has published a 66-page document reviewing common claims and attempting to refute them using case law.
"We try to explain the tax law to these people, but some of them still don't believe that the tax laws do apply to them," said Riley, of the IRS.
For believers, there's a wealth of published material supporting tax protest views. Information on the "truth" about the income tax abounds on the internet. Many sites rely on detailed legal or historical analysis, and some are penned by former IRS agents or lawyers. There are also several popular books, such as Meredith's. A new film, which premiered at the Cannes film festival this year, challenges the legitimacy of the federal income tax and is being screened across the country before receptive audiences.
Most protesters do a tremendous amount of research, said Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at the Cambridge, Mass., think tank Political Research Associates. And the nature of their views - namely, that the establishment is hiding the truth - make them suspicious of any information from establishment sources.
"There's a tremendous amount of literature that these people rely on for their beliefs, and the fact that it's been debunked doesn't matter,"he said. "Because the debunking is part of the conspiracy."
One thing tax protest leaders can't say anymore is that the government never prosecutes their peers. In the late 1990s, the IRS enforcement budget was slashed, after well-publicized Senate hearings decried the "Gestapo" nature of agency investigations. The resulting slack enforcement meant many prominent tax protesters could say they hadn't been filing for years and had never been arrested. But the Bush administration has significantly boosted the agency's enforcement budget.
Experts who watch the movement say they've seen a significant crackdown in the past few years, and many national figures, such as Lynne Meredith, have gone to jail. The IRS enforcement website lists dozens of recent arrests and convictions for tax evasion, willful failure to file and other tax crimes. According to the IRS, the agency wins more than 90 percent of its cases.
"In the last two years, the IRS has just smashed tax protesters across the board," said Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate and extremist groups, including tax protesters. "It's like every two weeks, someone's going down for this type of stuff."
William Morse, the assistant U.S. attorney handling the Brown case, said a handful of New Hampshire anti-tax activists have been successfully prosecuted in recent years. Two years ago, Steven Swan of Auburn, who was showing people how to fill out returns with zeros, was convicted of preparing false returns and sentenced to seven years in prison. Swan tried unsuccessfully to sue the man who taught him the technique, for fraud. Other ideological non-filers have been convicted and sentenced to shorter terms.
But to many protesters, prosecutions aren't evidence that their ideas are incorrect, they're just a sign that the government is trying to intimidate them.
"I have friends, people that I've met in this movement, that are incarcerated," Gronski said. "And it breaks my heart. Because you know it's just immoral. We have people who are whistleblowers against the federal government, and they are being incarcerated for taking a stand "
The experts say the movement is at a crossroads, but it's too soon to tell where it is headed. Despite the ideological commitment of many protesters, previous enforcement crackdowns have been effective, said Beirich.
"They're taking out their leadership one by one," she said. "How are they going to sustain this? They're going to be crippled."
But another historically important force points in a different direction. In periods of heightened government secrecy and surveillance, the numbers of conspiracy theorists has grown. Berlat said that we may be living in such a period, where government policy could feed extremist fantasies.
"I'm seeing more and more people persuaded that there's some kind of massive conspiracy by the government," he said.
By MARGOT SANGER-KATZ
Monitor staff
June 12. 2006 8:00AM
The Browns keep $500,000 in a safe. That?s roughly equal to Elaine?s unpaid federal taxes.
Ed Brown of Plainfield has a large safe in his new master bedroom. It's where he used to keep 28 guns, a bayonet and a machete before federal agents took them away last month. But the agents left behind something more valuable. According to Brown, he has nearly $500,000 inside - roughly equivalent to his wife's unpaid income taxes for the past five years.
Brown is holding the money in a "form of escrow," he said, until the federal government can persuade him and his wife that the law requires them to pay federal income taxes.
At the moment, he is not convinced.
"I'm prepared to pay at any time," he said. "I have had all that money for 10 years."
Ed Brown says he and his wife, Elaine, have not paid federal income taxes because he doesn't believe the law requires them to pay. Or, as he would put it, he knows that the law does not. He is one of perhaps 100,000 people throughout the country who believe the government has tricked most American citizens into paying a tax that has no basis in law. To Brown, who has longstanding ties to militia and other anti-government groups, the tax system is just one of many ways that the U.S. government is manipulating and controlling its citizens. He and his wife say they must spread the word.
"They don't want the American people to know that they're not liable for these taxes," Ed Brown said.
The government has given up trying to convince the Browns to pay. On May 24, both were arrested by U.S. marshals and charged with a series of tax evasion and conspiracy crimes - all related to their failure to pay any income tax for more than five years. Elaine Brown, a dentist with a successful West Lebanon practice, has been charged with 21 felonies, including tax evasion, conspiracy, failure to withhold employment taxes from her employees and money laundering. Ed Brown faces fewer charges, eight felonies, in part because he's retired from his career as a cockroach exterminator and currently earns no income. If convicted, the Browns could lose their home and face maximum sentences of five years in prison for each tax crime, and 10 years for each money laundering charge.
No luck with lawyers
The Browns see their trial as an opportunity to take a public stand against tax authorities and prove the righteousness of their legal analysis, but so far, none of the lawyers they've spoken with has been willing to make their argument before a judge and jury. Elaine Brown said she and her husband left a meeting with one recommended lawyer so devastated, "I thought we should slit our wrists."
"Basically, he said we're not going to win. We're going to lose. We're going to jail. We're going to lose all our property," she said.
The reason lawyers won't take the case, experts say, is because the Browns' position has no basis in law, and making such arguments could get an attorney sanctioned or disbarred. In case after case across the country, tax crime defendants who challenge the income tax have been convicted, and those convictions have been upheld on appeal.
"I don't know what's cause and what's effect, but once they get fixated on these things, there just doesn't seem to be any hope for them, and they wind up going to prison," said Daniel Evans, a Philadelphia estate lawyer who has made a hobby of following tax protester cases. "You can't get a responsible lawyer to get up in court and argue that the income tax doesn't apply, that it's voluntary. . . . You'll get disbarred."
For almost a decade, Ed Brown has been a vocal and public supporter of a series of anti-government causes. In the mid-1990s, he spoke for the embattled militia movement contending that the Oklahoma City bombing was planned by the government to discredit the groups. In more recent years, he has taken on the mantle of the United States Constitution Rangers of the Continental Congress of 1777, a group he describes as dedicated to monitoring government activity and protecting liberty, often by confronting law enforcement figures who the rangers believe are trampling people's rights. The group has chapters across the country, and Brown is one of two national leaders.
Mark Pitcavage, the head of fact-finding at theAnti-Defamation League, who has been watching right-wing extremist groups since the early 1990s, said he's known about Brown for as long as he's been on the job.
"For a long time, Ed Brown was one of the leading militia figures in New England," he said.
At Brown's arraignment in May, Assistant U.S. Attorney William Morse argued that Brown's history of militia membership, his collection of firearms and previous threats he's made against federal agents made him dangerous enough to be denied bail. He also showed the judge aerial photographs of Brown's house, where castle-like additions have been in the works for the last two years. Those improvements made the house "essentially a fortress,"Morse said.
The magistrate judge who heard the case dismissed those arguments and let Brown go as long as he surrendered his guns, a common requirement for defendants charged with a felony.
During a recent tour of his home's new construction, Brown laughed at Morse's statements.
"This is the fortress," he said, gesturing around his well-lit new breakfast room.
The walls are built of 10-inch-thick concrete for structural support, Brown said, not to fortify them against attack. And the open space atop a five story cylindrical tower with 360-degree views of Brown's property - it's a "deck," Brown said, not a "turret," as Morse had suggested.
The view includes a partially constructed greenhouse.
"In the event the economy collapses, a greenhouse of that size can feed a family of four indefinitely," Brown said.
Brown is friendly and personable, with a slim figure and a thick, gray mustache. He wears the badge of the Constitution Rangers clipped to his belt (a star in a circle with a scale of justice and the number 77). The insignia is also painted on the doors of his two trucks.
Chip Berlet, who interviewed Brown several times in the 1990s while researching his book Right Wing Populism in America, said he knew it was just a matter of time before Brown ran afoul of authorities, and he was glad to hear that it was over taxes and not guns. He said there may be some merit to Morse's contention that Brown was "heavily armed and dangerous."
"Ed so totally and completely believed in this conspiracy . . . it was obvious to me that he was probably destined for a confrontation with the government," he said. "You have to realize that he takes this stuff very seriously and has researched it for many years."
A longtime skeptic
Brown's anti-government theories are not limited to his views of the tax code. His decades of research have made him skeptical of any claims made by the federal government, he says. He believes the government was complicit in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and that members of the Illuminati, a rumored secret society, have infiltrated the highest levels of government around the world.
Though she has been less assertive about expressing her views in public, Elaine Brown agrees with most of her husband's legal and political ideas, and she shares his view that she does not owe any income tax.
The Browns get most of their news from a series of anti-tax and anti-government websites, and from the weekly American Free Press, a Washington, D.C., newspaper. The front page of a recent issue included the headlines "Davidians Rebuilding Waco Church: 13 years later survivors fighting for their beliefs," and "Explosive New 9-11 Theory: Physicist suggests 'thermite'caused twin tower collapse."
The Browns are also fearful of fluoridated water, which they think will poison them (they have their own well) and reject conventional medicine. Ed Brown said he and his wife believe all disease can be cured without drugs or surgery, through the use of diet and herbs.
Brown said he's not involved in the militia movement, which he said "doesn't exist any more." In the mid-1990s, he led a New Hampshire group called the Constitution Defense Militia and founded another militia group called the Unamerican Activities Investigations Commission. News reports at the time estimated the Constitution Defense Militia had about 15 members and met locally to train. But not today.
"It's a joke, and everybody knows it's a joke," he said, dismissing any questions about his militia history. "There's no such thing as a militia anymore."
Throughout the decade, Brown has remained a consistent and vehement opponent of the federal tax system, sending interrogatory letters instead of returns to the Internal Revenue Service each April.
Ideas like the Browns' on the invalidity of the federal income tax, abound on myriad "patriot" and "liberty"-themed websites. They espouse complex legal and constitutional theories about why the income tax is a sham, ranging from the idea that the tax is "voluntary" because of language in the 1040 instruction book, to a belief that labor cannot be taxed, to arguments that the 16th amendment, which authorizes a federal income tax, was improperly ratified.
Most of these ideas have been circulating since the late 1960s, when a Witchita building contractor began writing tax protest letters to the IRS and sharing his theories, according to Daniel Levitas, who chronicled the history of the movement in his book The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement and the Radical Right.
These tax protest ideas have long been popular in extremist circles. Anti-tax activists have a captive audience in people who are already disinclined to support the federal government's activities and have signed on to other anti-government conspiracy theories, said Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
"Most of the people who are involved in the tax protest movement had some connection with the militia movement and patriot movement," she said. "And, of course, they dovetail in that they hate the federal government."
A common refrain in tax protester circles is that IRS and other federal officials refuse to answer questions about the legitimacy of the income tax. Brown said he has sent letter after letter to the IRS explaining why he is not paying and asking for legal clarifications. The failure of the IRS or the U.S. Attorney's office to answer his questions, he said, proves his position is correct.
"You're going to have to show me a law," he said.
'Kangaroo court'
Brown said he understands the tax law better than the lawyers who are prosecuting him, but he also believes he and his wife will probably lose their case when it goes to trial on July 18. He expects that he's been dragged into a "kangaroo court," and that the judge and prosecutor are conspiring to punish him for speaking out against the government.
His arrest, he said, is just another sign that the government has strayed from the principles he reads in the Bill of Rights and the New Hampshire Constitution, two of three texts he believes to be the foundation of all law (the third is the Ten Commandments). He has framed copies of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution hanging in his house and a stash of bound copies of the New Hampshire Constitution, which he hands out to guests.
"I'm just an evil guy because I speak the truth," he whispered, waving the New Hampshire constitution in front of his face. "And I bring out things that they don't want you to know about."
But even if he loses, Brown said, he thinks his stand on the income tax will have value because it may alert others to the truth.
"If I'm going to live as a man of honor, I must stay with that position . . . at any cost," he said. "I understand what our forefathers went through now - the persecution."
On internet message boards geared toward New Hampshire libertarians and members of the Free State Project, a group of New Hampshire transplants who are hoping to transform the state's politics, the chatter since the Browns' arrest has been largely supportive.
"They are non-violent but know what the government of the world is up to and don't want to contribute to it," said one post on the NHFree.com message board, signed by "CNHT.""Now they will most likely be put in prison for not complying with it." Other posters offered to help the Browns and have begun organizing followers to attend their trials.
Dave Ridley, a Keene-based editor who moved to New Hampshire from Texas as part of the Free State Project, said he sees the approving discussion as a sign that the Browns' arrest will boost their cause by bringing attention to tax protest arguments.
"It's the civil disobedience of it that's sort of caught people's attention. He's sort of following a well trod path, an honored path,"he said.
"It's like a peaceful version of a guerilla war," he added. "The more you succeed against a guerilla movement, the more you grow it."
Elaine Brown is less confident. One night last week, she brought home the yellow pages for Concord, Manchester and Boston, in hopes of locating a lawyer.
"Right now, I'm sorry we started this," she said. "We thought we could make a difference."
(Margot Sanger-Katz? can be reached at 224-5301, ext. 307, or by e-mail at .)
Couple's tax trial closes, absent one
Ed Brown stays home as spouse rejects plea
By Kate Davidson and Margot Sanger-Katz?
Monitor staff
January 18. 2007 8:00AM
Ed and Elaine Brown's tax evasion trial concluded yesterday in federal court, despite Ed Brown's decision to remain barricaded in the couple's Plainfield home.
In court, Elaine Brown, who decided against a plea deal she had considered Tuesday, testified about how she came to believe that the federal income tax laws did not apply to her. She and her husband, who attended the first few days of the trial, have been charged with a series of conspiracy and tax crimes. They have said before and during the trial that they did not pay their taxes because they were not required to by law.
In closing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Morse argued forcefully that the Browns did have to pay their taxes, knew they needed to and chose to blind themselves to the truth in order to avoid paying.
"The evidence shows a refusal to abide by the standard interpretation of the tax laws accepted by the rest of the world, in favor of their own warped interpretation," Morse said.
The jury will begin its deliberations this morning.
"Once upon a time, everyone knew the world was flat," Elaine Brown said at the start of her testimony, which took a narrative form. "And then some upstarts came and said, no, the world is round. And they were stoned. That's pretty much where my husband and I are. We're the upstarts."
During her testimony, Elaine Brown described the process of legal research that led her to her current beliefs, reading excerpts from the Constitution, federal code, Supreme Court decisions, the congressional record and Black's Law Dictionary that she said showed that ordinary labor, like the work she performed in her Lebanon dental practice, could not be taxed.
She also showed the jury an hour-long video as an example of the materials that helped shape her views. The film's style mirrored Brown's testimony: It parsed passages from the internal revenue code and highlighted specific terms that could be clarified by reading other portions of the code.
The narrator was Larkin Rose, who has just finished a federal prison sentence for willful failure to file income taxes. In the video, he suggested that viewers second-guess their commonsense understandings of terms in the law.
"Could some words in this section mean something different?" he asked, warning viewers of the dangers of "legalese."
Brown also gave jurors a glimpse of her experiences with the IRS in the early 1990s before she decided to opt out of the tax system. According to Brown, she tried to work out a payment plan with the IRS after her tax bill significantly exceeded her estimates one year. The IRS didn't respond for months, she testified, and then demanded that she pay her bill in full, plus interest and penalties, even though she had made payments in the meantime.
According to Brown, she complied with those demands, but she refused to pay when she later learned of an additional $3,300 fine. The IRS seized the money from her bank account, she said.
"It was pretty much at this point that we stopped holding savings accounts," she said.
During her testimony, Brown apologized for her fear and nervousness and briefly broke into tears.
But Morse, the prosecutor, implored the jury not to let their sympathies for the Browns' personal circumstances cloud their deliberations.
"I submit that the Browns do not deserve your sympathy," he said in his closing argument. "They are simply two wealthy people unwilling to pay their taxes."
In his cross examination of Elaine Brown, Morse confronted many of Brown's statements with documents. Since she said she had studied the federal tax code, he asked her to read passages describing how married couples must file returns according to a certain fee schedule, how compensation for services was taxable and how individuals must file a tax return.
"Were you aware of that provision when you testified that you weren't aware of any provisions requiring you to pay income tax?" he asked after pointing to each section. Each time, she answered yes.
Morse challenged her contention that she was not a U.S. citizen subject to federal jurisdiction by showing her passport application.
"Oh, for purposes of getting a passport, you considered yourself a U.S. citizen?" he asked. "For purposes of taxes, Mrs. Brown, you weren't a citizen?"
Elaine Brown repeatedly characterized her motivation as a noble one, describing her and her husband and people who were willing to risk punishment to bring the truth to light.
"It would have been much, much easier to pay those taxes," she said. "We try to be people who stand for what we believe."
Morse ended his closing argument by referencing these statements. Brown's certainty, he said, was evidence that she had learned nothing from the trial.
"Unless you hold Mr. and Mrs. Brown accountable for these tax crimes, they will go out there and do them again," he said.
Though Ed Brown refused to appear in federal court again today, the jury's decision will still affect him. Judge Steven McAuliffe? explained to the jury yesterday that it was Brown's right not to participate in the trial or present a defense, and he asked them not to hold it against him in deliberations.
Back at his home, Ed Brown was waiting for federal agents to come and get him nevertheless. With the help of a handful of supporters, he blocked his driveway, armed himself, and said he's waiting for a shootout when officials try to take him away.
Brown has issued a call to arms through e-mails and radio appearances and said he's expecting many more to help him defend his property
Yesterday, a handful of backers gathered in his kitchen, and at least one had pitched an orange tent in the yard, but there still appeared to be more supporters at the trial than at the home. Brown said some people are driving from as far away as Wisconsin and Michigan, and others are already in the area.
But he wondered yesterday if their earlier arrival might have changed the course of the trial.
"It took a little bit longer to get started," Brown said. "If we had the initial support, my wife never would have gone back" to court.
Brown said that he was pleased to learn that his wife had declined the government's plea deal. The couple spoke briefly Tuesday night after McAuliffe? released Elaine Brown to the custody of her son - who lives in Worcester, Mass. - and ordered her not to return to the Plainfield house.
"You don't plead to something you didn't do," Brown said.
Ed Brown said he spoke again with an official from the U.S. Marshals Office on Tuesday night, and he wasn't concerned about an assault yesterday.
But mental and physical exhaustion appeared to take its toll as Brown stayed home for the fifth straight day. He fielded dozens of calls from media outlets, and he appeared in his back doorway to speak with a throng of reporters around lunchtime.
Later, however, he lit a fire in the kitchen's woodstove and drank tea with family friends. He chatted with one of his supporters about philosophy, politics, immigration, prohibition and the Ten Commandments.
