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Feds keep close eye on Browns
Margot Sanger-Katz
Concord
Monitor
Monday September 17, 2007
Before
arresting four supporters of Ed and Elaine Brown last week, U.S.
marshals conducted extensive surveillance on the tax protesting
couple who are holed up in their Plainfield home, court documents
show.
While the marshals have said little about their investigation
of the Browns and their allies over the past eight months, recently
unsealed affidavits reveal that they have quietly been interrogating
some of the Browns' supporters, conducting aerial surveillance
and intercepting mailed packages for the couple. That information
helped lead to the arrest last week of four core supporters of
the couple. The court documents also outline facts that could
form the basis for new charges against the Browns themselves.
The affidavits, which were submitted by marshals as a basis for
three of the four arrest warrants, detail some of those surveillance
findings, including intelligence about the layout of the Browns'
property, explosives, and security measures employed to protect
Ed and Elaine Brown.
The Browns were convicted in January of a series of tax-related
crimes and have remained in their hilltop home for months, threatening
violence if marshals come to arrest them. They have called repeatedly
for supporters to come and guard the property and to send military-style
supplies and provisions.
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Stephen Monier, the U.S. Marshal for New Hampshire, has said
little about the marshals' plans for the Browns or their supporters
and has declined to describe evidence discovered by his agents.
Since the Browns' sentencing in April, Monier has repeated that
supporters may face criminal sanctions for aiding the Browns and
that he has no plans to raid the Brown home.
"We've said from the beginning that we're going to take
a slow, deliberate and methodical approach," Monier said
at a press briefing Thursday.
The recently unsealed documents give the fullest picture yet of
the marshals' techniques and findings.
According to the documents, one of the Browns' supporters, Daniel
Riley, of Cohoes, N.Y., gave investigators a detailed account
of weapons and explosive devices on the Browns' property after
he was detained by marshals in June. Riley was walking the Browns'
dog when he stumbled upon a surveillance team in the woods near
the driveway. On a video Riley posted on the internet that night,
he described his capture and interrogation, but did not say that
he provided the marshals with information.
But according to one of the affidavits, Riley described how he
came to visit the Browns, what weapons he brought into the house
and what weapons he saw while he was there. He told investigators
that he had seen several rifles, handguns and two black powder
explosive devices in the house that were designed to be used as
grenades. Ed Brown said there were 10 to 20 similar explosive
devices on the property, Riley told marshals.
Riley also told investigators that he had brought a number of
supplies to the house that Ed Brown requested, including 25 fire
extinguishers, and a .50-caliber rifle, and that he had ordered
12 pounds of Tannerite, a chemical agent for an explosive device,
the document says.
The documents describe aerial surveillance of the Brown house
on the day Riley was detained. According to another of the affidavits,
a marshal was watching the house from a plane that day with a
telephoto lens. That marshal was able to observe Cirino Gonzalez
of Alice, Texas, another recently arrested Brown supporter, walking
the property with a high-powered rifle and Ed Brown using vehicles
to block his driveway.
"As Brown drove the cars, Gonzalez walked within several
feet of Brown and paid careful attention to what was happening
on the property while carrying a high-powered rifle," the
affidavit says.
According to the third affidavit, supporters sent the Browns
camouflage outfits, fishing weights, fishing line, flashlights,
solar powered security lights and more than 500 pounds of dehydrated
food. The document used to secure an arrest warrant for Robert
Wolffe of Randolph, Vt., describes many of the packages mailed
to Wolffe after he offered his address as the site of a "Liberty
Defense Project" and said he'd deliver any mailings to the
Browns.
An affidavit supporting the arrest warrant of Jason Gerhard,
the Brown supporter charged with the most crimes last week, has
not been made public. Marshals also found a pipe bomb and other
weapons at Gerhard's Brookhaven, N.Y., home last week, according
to the local police.
Two Brown supporters who have not been arrested were also mentioned
in the documents. Rob Jacobs of Allenstown, who moved to New Hampshire
as part of the Free State Project, and James Hobbs of Phoenix,
who lived in a trailer on the Brown property for several weeks
this summer, are both described as helping the arrested supporters.
On Saturday, marshals continued to ratchet up pressure on the
couple, when they established a checkpoint near their home to
prevent visitors from attending a planned "Fall Freedom Fest"
party. One supporter, Lauren Canairo, was arrested after she refused
to follow the marshals' instructions, Monier said Saturday.
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