Ed and Elaine Brown Convicted in Plot to Defend Themselves

[efoods]Tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown were convicted today on all counts “of plotting to kill federal agents during a nine-month standoff at their fort-like rural home, where they had holed up to avoid arrest on tax evasion,” the Associated Press is reporting.

Both face mandatory minimum 30-year prison sentences on that charge alone, amounting to a virtual death sentence for the Browns, who are in their 60s.

Ed Brown testified during the trial that the weapons in his home were for self-defense. Brown said he believed the government planned to kill him, a not unrealistic assumption considering government action against the Randy Weaver family at Ruby Ridge, the residents of Mount Carmel outside of Waco, Texas, and countless other people who have resisted the government.

“By rejecting the rule of the law and substituting a personal code involving weapons, explosives and threats, the defendants committed increasingly serious crimes,” acting U.S. Attorney Michael Gunnison said. “Their conduct has no place in a civil society.”

In other words, resisting a criminal tax confiscation system and responding to threats by heavily armed federal agents has no place in a “civil society.”

The Browns are scheduled to be sentenced to death on September 3.

This article was posted: Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 3:26 pm

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