Tax Evaders in N.H. Arrested Without Trouble

Oct 06, 12:39 AM

Current Headlines: By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CONCORD, N.H. - A couple convicted of tax evasion who threatened violence if authorities approached them were arrested peacefully at their rural Plainfield home after holing up at the fortress-like compound for months, U.S. Marshals said.

The big question Thursday night was how authorities managed to take Ed and Elaine Brown into custody without the confrontation they had promised.

U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier, who said repeatedly he would seek a peaceful surrender, planned to explain this morning in a news conference at the federal courthouse in Concord.

Ed Brown had warned authorities they wouldn't take him alive: "We either walk out of here free or we die," he said earlier this year.

The Browns, who were turned over to the custody of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, 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.

"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," Monier said in a news release Thursday.

Expert observers had praised the authorities' hands-off approach, but patience wore thin for Plainfield's 2,400 residents.

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