Excerpts from Ed Brown's Wikipedia biography:

Assault and armed robbery

In 1960, Brown was found guilty of assault with a dangerous weapon and armed robbery in connection with an attack on a man in Somerville, Massachusetts.[2] Brown was imprisoned at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute in Concord, Massachusetts, but was pardoned by then- governor Michael Dukakis in July of 1976, after having been paroled in January of 1965.[3] [edit]Involvement in militia movement

According to an October 1994 article in the New Hampshire Sunday News[4] Brown was the spokesman for an organization called the Constitution Defense Militia, and had become involved in the militia movement in late 1993. The newspaper reported that Brown designated various individuals and organizations as being part of a conspiracy to deprive Americans of life and liberty. Among the people and organizations named by Brown were then-present U.S. President Bill Clinton, former President George H.W. Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev, The Council on Foreign Relations, the United Nations, the Tri-Lateral Commission, the American Bar Association, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).[5]

In early June 2007 Brown claimed that the law enforcement officials surrounding his properties were part of a "Zionist, Illuminati, Free Mason movement," and that the Federal government had no jurisdiction in New Hampshire.[18] Referring to the warrants and court orders against him, Brown said "This is just paper [ . . . ] This is fiction. The entire American government is fiction. We created it, didn't we?"[19] The New Hampshire Union Leader also reported that "the Browns believe the IRS and the federal income tax are part of a deliberate plot perpetrated by Freemasons to control the American people and eventually the world."[20] [edit]Chronology of post-trial events