Concord – Tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown were taken into custody without incident at their home in Plainfield about 7:45 p.m. last night, according to the U.S. marshal for New Hampshire.

"We had no indication that the Browns intended to voluntarily surrender, so we had to move forward with an operation that promised the safest possible outcome. That day was today, U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier said in a written statement.

The Browns were taken into custody by a team of deputy marshals, Monier said.

He said marshals moved "forward with an operation that promised the safest possible outcome" but did not provide details. The two did not surrender, he said.

A news briefing is scheduled for 10 a.m. today at the U.S. District Courthouse in Concord.

►Elaine Brown: Tax evaders embrace freedom (18)
►Common anti-tax arguments analyzed, rebutted (23)
►MaketheStand.com: The Browns' web site
►Brown grows gray as siege drags on (21)
►Browns say they will either walk free, or die (27)
►Alleged Brown backers returned to NH (4)

"I am very pleased that in this case our patient, methodical approach worked. No one was injured and the community remained safe through the operation," he said.

Monier noted the two have already been sentenced and will be turned over to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. He was uncertain where they would have spent last night, but said it would not have been in a county jail.

The Browns -- he is 65 and she is 66 -- were sentenced to 63 months in prison April 24 after a jury found them guilty in January of federal tax crimes, including avoiding paying taxes on $1.9 million that Elaine Brown, a dentist, earned between 1996 and 2003.

They claim there is no law that requires them to pay federal income taxes. As the showdown entered summer, the New Hampshire Union Leader reported the Browns had also stopped paying local property taxes. Each promised to defend themselves to the death, vows that alarmed some neighbors and angered others.

Their fortified house located on more than 100 acres was described as a bunker by anti-government friends and reporters who visited.

Authorities said from the beginning that they would wait out the Browns. To that end, they cut off their electricity, Internet access, television, telephone and mail service.

Four supporters of the Browns were arrested on Sept. 12. In his news release, Monier said that since those arrests, "there had been a dip in the number of visitors to the house."

In June, heavily armed police surrounded the Browns' compound while they seized commercial property the couple owned in a neighboring town.

Their house is at 401 Center of Town Road in Plainfield, a town of about 2,500 on the Vermont border.

The arrests "will be a relief to everyone in the community," state Agriculture Commissioner Stephen Taylor, a Plainfield resident, said last night.

The Browns could face additional charges related to their stand-off; after their felony convictions, they continued to possess weapons. The couple continued to seek weapons, issuing pleas on one of their Web sites, including requests for body armor, thermal-vision cameras, flare guns and pistols.

New Hampshire Union Leader Staff Writer Dan Tuohy and The Associated Press contributed to this report.