PLAINFIELD, N.H. (AP) – Convicted tax evaders Ed and Elaine Brown may have left their Plainfield property for prison, but the rural town is still feeling the effects of the couple’s monthslong resistance against authorities.

Explosives experts from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives last week removed homemade bombs from the Browns’ 110-acre property and detonated them in a gravel pit near the Connecticut River.

The blasts on Thursday set the phones ringing at the Plainfield police station and the town hall in neighboring Meriden, as residents called to find out what the noise was all about.

“People might have the perception that with the Browns’ arrest, it is over,” said Plainfield resident David Grobe. “Clearly, it is not. We believed the Browns when they said they had weapons. We’re not really surprised.”

After leaving their trial in January, Ed Brown and Elaine Brown holed up in their concrete-walled home and refused to surrender to authorities, even after they were convicted and sentenced over scheming to hide $1.9 million in income to avoid paying federal income tax. They and their supporters insisted there is no law requiring the payment of federal income tax and vowed to take a stand to the death rather than give in. But in September, authorities arrested four of the Browns’ supporters and followed that weeks later with the arrests of Ed and Elaine Brown, who were delivered to federal prisons earlier this month to serve sentences of 63 months each.

U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier last week confirmed federal officers found “a large number of improvised explosive devices, both inside the residence and out,” lots of weapons and ammunition inside the Brown’s house and booby traps in the surrounding woods.

He said the blasts are part of the to-do list officers are working through to remove hazards from the Browns’ property.

“As far as I understand, the explosions are done, but we’re not done with the search yet,” he said.

He added, “there’s a lot of work to do up there.”

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Information from: Lebanon Valley News, http://www.vnews.com

AP-ES-10-14-07 1151EDT