CONCORD, N.H. - A tax evader convicted of amassing an arsenal of weapons was sentenced yesterday to 37 years in federal prison in a hearing punctuated by him laughing and chiding the judge and prosecutors.
An attorney for Ed Brown had argued that his client suffers from a delusional disorder and asked for the minimum mandatory sentence of 30 years, saying it was enough and amounted to a life sentence for the 67-year-old Brown. Prosecutors sought a sentence of almost 50 years.
US District Judge George Singal found Brown competent and said he decided on the sentence because Brown seemed unrepentant.
Brown made several outbursts throughout the hearing. At one point, he was removed from court when he would not be quiet during a forensic psychologist’s testimony. Singal referred to him as a 6-year-old child needing a timeout.
Later on, as Singal was sentencing him, Brown started laughing and said, “Give me 500 years sir; make yourself happy.’’ He then stood up and was escorted out of the courtroom.
Brown and his wife, Elaine, were in a nine-month standoff with authorities in 2007 after they were sentenced to five years in prison for tax evasion. US marshals posing as supporters arrested them peacefully. The couple were convicted of the most recent charges in July.
Elaine Brown was sentenced in October to 35 years in prison.
When it was Ed Brown’s turn to address the court, he rambled on for 45 minutes about his duty to protect the Constitution and how the government has been run by Freemasons and the US attorney’s office since the Civil War.
“I didn’t realize the criminal element was them,’’ he said, saying more than once he wished he could have introduced evidence supporting his arguments.
“We haven’t hurt a soul,’’ Brown said of himself and his wife. “They attacked us. We didn’t attack them.’’
He added, “We just asked a question: Show me the law about taxes from Day 1.’’
Brown began his statement by saying that no one really knew who the real Ed and Elaine Brown were, except a few supporters in court.
During the sentencing, he nodded at Marie Miller of Farmington, who said she is a longtime friend of the couple.
“My heart aches over this travesty,’’ Miller said. “They are very lovely people.’’
During the trial, Ed Brown testified that the weapons were for self-defense and that the explosives in the woods around their home were to scare intruders, not harm them.
But in a radio interview during the standoff, he said that if authorities came to kill him or arrest him “the chief of police in this town, the sheriff, the sheriff himself will die; this is war now, folks.’’