PLAINFIELD, N.H. (AP) – The phones were back on Friday at the home of convicted tax evaders Ed and Elaine Brown, a day after heavily armed police surrounded it, cut off phone and Internet service and seized commercial property the couple owned in a neighboring town.

Federal authorities said they were only conducting surveillance and guarding the Plainfield property to protect against violence while they seized Elaine Brown’s dental practice in Lebanon to help satisfy a federal court judgment.

“We had no intention of assaulting the house,” U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier said Friday.

But Ed Brown said Friday he believes the marshals planned to raid the home as well, before they were discovered by one of the couple’s supporters.

“He’s lying through his teeth about several things,” Brown said. “Did I think the raid was imminent? Yeah. I was notified that they were on their way.”

The Browns claim the federal income tax is not legitimate and have drawn support from so-called “patriot” and militia groups. Ed Brown declined to say whether more supporters had arrived at the couple’s home Friday.

“I am a United States Constitution Ranger for real. I have more law enforcement authority and lawful jurisdiction than any of these law enforcement agencies do. Hello. We are officers of honor. … We protect your rights, your guarantees of life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness,” he said. “They’re conducting sedition and treason.”

In a video clip posted on a Web site supporting the Browns’ cause Thursday night, a man identifying himself as Danny Riley, of Albany, N.Y., said he spotted a man in camouflage in the woods near the end of the long driveway while walking the Browns’ dog Thursday morning.

“I yelled to him, ‘What are you doing, turkey hunting?”‘ he said. “All of a sudden a guy stood right up in front of me with a full camouflage suit on and yelled, ‘Freeze!’ At that point I turned around and ran for my life.”

Riley, who said he was yelling that he was unarmed, claimed he heard two shots whiz past him as he ran, then more men in camouflage popped up out of the woods on either side of him and told him to freeze. He stopped, and they shocked him and handcuffed him, he said.

They first asked him to try and negotiate the Browns’ surrender, then strip-searched and questioned him for hours at a police station in Lebanon, he said. They asked about the Browns’ compound, the number of people there and the weapons in the house, he said.

They asked him to return to the Browns’ house and tell them only two men had arrested him – but when he got there, the Browns and their supporters already knew what had really happened, he said. While he was driving home, Riley said he picked up a message on his cell phone from another Brown supporter who said he was arrested when he left the compound to buy groceries.

Monier said the marshals had not arrested anyone else. He said a man walking a dog had been detained, but declined to identify him because he was not arrested. Asked whether shots had been fired, he said no deadly force was used.

“No lethal force was ever employed yesterday – none,” he said Friday morning.

The Browns were convicted in January of scheming to avoid federal income taxes by hiding $1.9 million of income between 1996 and 2003. They also were convicted of using $215,890 in postal money orders to pay for their home and the dental office.

The money orders were bought in amounts just below the tax-reporting threshold.

They stopped attending their trial part way through. In April, a federal judge sentenced them to begin serving more than five years in prison immediately. They did not attend their sentencing hearing; an appeal they filed earlier has been forwarded to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

Monier said the show of force Thursday was because Ed Brown has threatened violence against anyone trying to seize his property.

The home has a watchtower, concrete walls and the ability to run on wind and solar power. Ed Brown, who has at least one gun, has said he has stockpiled food and supplies.

Monier said U.S. marshals have negotiated daily with the Browns since January and will continue doing so in hopes of persuading them to surrender peacefully.

Monier said officials cut the phone to prevent supporters from flocking to the Browns. The couple has developed an online following of fellow anti-tax activists, Ron Paul supporters and others who believe in a federal government conspiracy to deprive Americans of their liberties.

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