blog w/ video from the arrest by marshals - Some questions need to be answered. http://www.wmur.com/news/14374126/detail.html?taf=man Brown Claims He Was Gassed, Mistreated Convicted Tax Evader Complains About Treatment POSTED: 10:48 pm EDT October 18, 2007 UPDATED: 12:03 pm EDT Octo

Newbie Joined: Oct 19, 2007 Posts: 13

Some questions need to be answered.

http://www.wmur.com/news/14374126/detail.html?taf=man

Brown Claims He Was Gassed, Mistreated
Convicted Tax Evader Complains About Treatment

POSTED: 10:48 pm EDT October 18, 2007
UPDATED: 12:03 pm EDT October 19, 2007
ELKTON, OHIO -- A Plainfield, N.H., man recently captured after a months-long standoff to avoid arrest after he was convicted of tax evasion claimed that he was gassed and mistreated by corrections officials.

Ed and Elaine Brown were arrested by U.S. marshals this month. In a tape-recorded conversation with one of his supporters from his prison cell in Ohio, Ed Brown said he was mistreated after his arrest and during his transport to Ohio.

The supporter was Shaun Allen Kranish, of Chicago, the man who unknowingly led marshals to the Browns' home. The marshals were posing as other supporters and said they took the Browns into custody without incident.

"How come you brought them guys down to me?" Brown asked on the tape.

"I had no idea he tricked me," Kranish said.

Kranish said he reached Brown in prison by saying he was working with Browns attorneys, and Brown asked him to make the conversation public.

Brown described the night he was arrested.

"Some little cowardly U.S. marshal, some little punk kid, he Tasered me," Brown said. "I didn't even resist one second, OK?"

Brown said he was then taken to the Lebanon Police Department, where he was reunited with his wife.

"They put me in a holding cell," he said. "Then Elaine came in a few minutes later, a little while later. She was terrified."

Brown claimed he was "gassed" at a detention center in Rhode Island for three days.

"I was gassed through the ventilation system," Brown said. "You hear my voice? This is not my normal voice."

Brown described it as "some sort of cleaning fluid or something."

"I was breathing on the floor underneath the space underneath the bottom of the door just so I could stay alive," he said.

He also said he was placed on suicide watch in what he called a "deprivation tank."

"I was stripped naked, put into a very cold concrete room with a glass door in it," he said. "I was observed."

Brown said he's cold and has been outside once. He just started receiving mail, but he can't send any out. He also said there have been no phone calls until now.

"I guess Ed and Elaine Brown, the elderly couple, really rattled their cages, eh?" Brown said.

The phone conversation was cut off after 10 minutes.

The prison and U.S. Marshals Service had no comment on the conversation or the allegations Brown made.

The Browns were sentenced to five years in prison after they were found guilty of concealing income to avoid paying federal income taxes. The Browns and their supporters claim there are no laws requiring anyone to pay federal income taxes.