Jury gets weapons case against NH tax evaders

CONCORD, N.H. — Convicted tax evader Ed Brown just “wanted to live” when he stockpiled guns and explosives at his home during a 2007 standoff, his defense lawyer said Wednesday during closing arguments in Brown’s weapons and conspiracy trial.

A prosecutor agreed Brown was trying to live, but added this qualifier: “his way.”

“He wanted to live his way, and anyone who wouldn’t let him live his way, he’d kill, period,” said U.S. Attorney Arnold Huftalen.

Brown and his wife, Elaine, fled to their Plainfield, N.H., home after being sentenced to five years in prison for tax evasion in January 2007. They were captured without incident nine months later and now face weapons and conspiracy charges that could keep them in prison for the rest of their lives.

Jurors began deliberations late Wednesday afternoon after a six-day trial that included video footage of the couple’s turreted mountain top home.

After several hours, they did not reach a verdict and are expected to resume deliberations on Thursday.

Prosecutors say the couple booby-trapped their property with the intention of harming federal agents trying to arrest them, and federal agents described finding 21 pipe bombs, dozens of rifles, tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition and numerous bombs made out of gun powder cans encircled with strips of nails that would have sprayed out as shrapnel on detonation.

“Ed and Elaine Brown and their supporters never intended to have this end peacefully,” said prosecutor Terry Ollila. “They wanted guerrilla warfare.”

Ed Brown testified Tuesday that he didn’t start building the bombs until June 2007, after federal agents made a failed attempt to arrest him outside his home. He denied booby-trapping the property to kill federal agents and said the explosives placed in the woods around the home were designed to scare intruders, not harm them.

Brown, who was repeatedly admonished by the judge for outbursts during his testimony, also complained that the court refused to allow him to present the case he wanted at his earlier trial, but Ollila said his views on taxes are irrelevant.

“It simply didn’t and does not matter what Ed and Elaine’s views are on taxes. The fact is, they were charged … convicted by a jury of their peers and sentenced,” she said. Just because they disagreed with the outcome, they don’t have the right to flee and create a massive fortress, she said.

Ed Brown’s defense lawyer, Michael Iacopino, argued that prosecutors had failed to prove his client acted with willful criminal intent. He said the fact that some of Brown’s testimony actually hurt his case — for example, confirming that he had bought weapons before the June incident — should be a sign to jurors that Brown was being truthful.

“Ed Brown was not polite on the witness stand. He was not the most gentlemanly guy,” he said. “But under our law, he is still innocent.

“I suggest to you that it’s not hard to believe Ed Brown when he told you he was not willfully attempting to break any laws,” he said, then quoted his client: “I was trying to live. They were going to kill me. I was trying to live.”

Elaine Brown did not testify in her defense, but her lawyers put supporters on the stand who described her as a very kind woman. In his closing argument, lawyer Bjorn Lang said that aside from a pistol she was carrying when she was arrested, there was no proof that Elaine Brown had ever possessed any of the other weapons strewn about her house, from rifles in the bathroom to a detonation wire on the kitchen counter, next to a fruit bowl.

“Yes she knew about them, how could she not?” he said. “That does not mean she had control over those items.”

He said by remaining in the house, Elaine Brown was doing what she felt she had to do “as a loyal wife.” But prosecutors said she was a full participant in the conspiracy to keep agents at bay.

“She financed it. She fed it. She cleaned up after it. She held a gun … to protect it,” Huftalen said. “She was a member of a conspiracy.”