‘No One Has To Die’ Story of historic stand-off features Red Oak native Dave Dimmitt

A new book detailing the longest armed standoff in the history of the United States Marshals has recently hit bookshelves.
The standoff involved Ed and Elaine Brown, Plainview, New Hampshire residents who kept law enforcement members at bay for months. In addition to detailing the events, the story also features Red Oak native Dave Dimmitt, himself a U.S. Marshall at the time and who was heavily involved in negotiations to end the standoff.
The book is authored by former U.S. Marshal Steve Monier. President George W. Bush nominated Monier as United States Marshal on April 15, 2002. He served as the U.S. Marshal for New Hampshire from May 19, 2002 until October 30, 2009. Prior to his appointment, Monier had a 38 year career in law enforcement in new Hampshire, spending 30 years with the department in Goffstown, the last 15 years of which he served as the town’s police chief.
Following his appointment by Bush, Monier grew acquainted with his Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal, Gary DiMartino, who, along with Dimmitt, contributed to Monier’s book.
“Dave Dimmitt, I got to know when this case started with Ed and Elaine Brown, which was in January of 2007. Actually, it started before that, but that’s a little bit of a story in the book. We got involved initially because the IRS had brought felony indictments against the Browns for failure to pay taxes for almost 10 years, and they owed something like $625,000 plus penalties and interest when they were indicted. And Ed Brown was somebody who people in New Hampshire had known about for a while because he had a bit of a reputation because he was a member of a militia, and as it turned out, he was also a tax denier, both he and his wife. So, Dave Dimmitt was a Regional Field Chief Inspector for the Marshals Service at that time,” explained Monier.
Dimmitt at the time was based out of the Albany, N.Y area and became a part of the team when the standoff started.
“They refused to come back to trial in the continuation of their trial and all the tax-related charges, Dave Dimmitt was assigned to come over and assist the district with the case. And he pretty much spent a good majority of the nine months that the standoff took place living in New Hampshire with us and traveling back and forth. So, he was a huge help during the case, as were others at headquarters that were sent in and our own staff from the District of New Hampshire. That’s how I got to know Dave Dimmitt,” stated Monier.
The Browns were indicted by the IRS Criminal Division, who involved the U.S. Marshal’s Service in helping them serve the warrant to the Browns.
“Ed was already known at that point as being a member of the militia. He was known to make statements against the federal government. He and his wife always traveled armed, so they asked us to get involved and we did, working with them and other law enforcement in the area, local and state. We pulled a ruse and arrested them both as they showed up at the office building in West Lebanon that they owned, where we got them away from the house, by claiming there was a water problem at Elaine’s dental office.  We placed them under arrest without any difficulty,” advised Monier.
However, Monier said that since the crimes were financial, at the arraignment, the Browns were released with the stipulation that they would show up for the trial. Monier said they followed the stipulations initially, then things changed, and it sparked a nine month, 266 day standoff with authorities. Making the standoff more difficult, Monier said, was the location of the Browns’ residence.
“They lived off of a dirt road on 110 hilltop acres of Plainfield. It was a remote section. The dirt road was a dead-end road. They were, I believe, the next to the last house on the road. So, that was fortuitous in a couple of ways, but it also worked against us once they failed to show up because immediately a lot of Brown’s militia supporters from the Northeast gathered at the end of their driveway. It was a long driveway leading to the house on this dirt road, and they were there holding signs and of course they’re all carrying rifles and other kinds of weapons,” commented Monier. “So, we decided early on, because of the remote nature of the house and because they said they weren’t leaving, at least initially, we would talk with them. So,we began a strategy of communicating with them regularly, and that fell to DiMartino, who quite admirably had established a rapport with them while they were in when they were being arraigned. So there were good and bad attributes about it being such a remote location.”
In addition to the remoteness of the location, Monier said the Browns also had lots of supplies at their disposal.
“Elaine Brown had a thriving dental practice and they weren’t paying taxes for 10 years, so they had a lot of money that they invested into this compound and they could live off the grid. They had a windmill, they had solar, they had battery backups, they had generators, and they were stockpiling ammunition and food. The house had a complete three-story turret or tower which you could go up in, and you had a 360-degree view of all the land, open area around the house, and all the woodland surrounding the property. When this started to garner the attention of people who were tax deniers and militia members and sovereign citizen types around the country, people were bringing them supplies and ultimately also bringing them weapons and bomb-making materials.”
In addition to local support, Monier said the Browns were also able to gain sympathy from across the U.S.
“This was the first case of its kind where folks were using the World Wide Web to engender all sorts of support for them around the country. At one point, Ed and Elaine were doing daily radio broadcasts from their home, and they were talking to people like Alex Jones on a regular basis, folks like that who were also sympathetic to them, and against the federal government. A lot of tax deniers, you know, I knew about the tax denier movement before this case started, but I didn’t realize how many tax deniers are out there who really believe that you don’t have to pay your federal income taxes,” Monier said.
That reliance on the internet, Monier said, was also a benefit to the agencies trying to end the standoff.
“We were listening to all they said and monitoring their worldwide web use, we had a good handle on what was going on there almost every day, and who was visiting them, and who was doing things beyond bringing them cookies and baked goods, who were doing things that were far more nefarious, like bringing them weapons and bomb-making materials,” Monier stated.
Monier said agencies had to tread carefully, as the Browns threatened that the standoff would end in tragedy like those that took place at Ruby Ridge, or Waco.
“It would have been difficult just to send a group of deputies there to try and arrest them at the house because we knew as soon as they failed to show up for court there were a bunch of armed people there, and we didn’t want that kind of confrontation where someone would end up getting hurt or worse, killed. We didn’t want that outcome. So from the beginning, we tried to come up with a better way, through a ruse, and the opportunity presented itself because they were using the web to encourage supporters, people they didn’t know, to come out there and who were essentially just driving up the driveway. And so my Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal in particular, Gary, and with Dave Dimmitt’s support and that of his crew, we worked out another ruse.”
Ultimately, Monier said the Browns open door policy allowed them to use a Trojan horse strategy to ultimately bring them to justice. The details of the strategy used to arrest the Browns can be found by reading Monier’s book. Monier added that he was grateful nobody got hurt or killed, and they were able to successfully take a relatively elderly couple into custody without a shot being fired.
Monier said the high profile nature of the standoff caused involvement from a variety of agencies.
“It was watched by the highest level of our government in Washington, D.C., including the Attorney General of the United States, the Director of the U.S. Marshals Service, and the FBI and our partner agencies. It garnered a lot of media attention through the nine months, not only local and state, but nationally. We even had a crew from Germany that came over to do a story on this case while it was going on, Monier advised. “I had to fly down to Washington, D.C., to my headquarters to brief the Director and the Deputy Directors of our agency, and then the next day we all went over to brief the Deputy Attorney General of the United States about what our plans were and how we were going to resolve this case. So it was significant. It was a case that was very difficult, but the outcome was a positive one.”
Monier added there were a number of reasons why he decided to commit the story to the page for others to read, and tell the stories of the people involved, like Dave Dimmitt.
“This is a good story, and it’s a story that should be told about how we did it the right way, and how the Marshal’s service ended what could have been a tragic event, how we ended it the right way. It was a real team effort. Dimmitt and the other contributors were a big help, as they helped me find the people who had worked on the case, most of whom were retired. DiMartino and Dimmitt had a large network around the country and were able to track down the people that I needed to interview for the book, reflect my recollections, and give me different perspectives of how things went. This book took almost two years to research, prepare, and write.”
The story also had a big impact on Dimmitt, and it was important to him that the story was told.
“I pitched the story to Dave, and for him, this was one of many difficult cases, and gave him cumulative PTSD, and it unfortunately affects far too many of our first responders, particularly in law enforcement. This was a very tense case, and Dave spent so much time with us working to try and resolve it the right way, and it greatly affected him, like the many other difficult cases he’s handled over his tenure in law enforcement. He was very pleased when I asked him to be a contributor and help put together things and find people to interview. We asked him if it was okay with him, and he always expressed it was important to him to get the story told,” stated Monier.
Monier credited Dave Dimmitt as the one who helped him craft the books title.
“Dave Dimmitt’s suggestion, ‘No One Has To Die, started out as a subtitle. Originally, when I started working on a manuscript to the book, my working title was ‘Plainfield: The Waco that wasn’t.’ I wasn’t particularly enthralled with that title, and so when we were finishing up the manuscript and sending it off to a publisher for review and acceptance, we were batting around other titles. Dave Dimmitt came up with No One Has to Die as a subtitle, while ultimately working with a publisher that they liked that for the title, so I used that for a title and the subtitle being that this was the longest armed standoff in the history of the U.S. Marshals.”
The story was released Oct. 4, the date the Browns’ standoff ended. To pick up a copy, visit geniusbookpublishing.com/collections/steve-monier?srsltid=AfmBOoqAycgq3UJsXJLtxf8uMjr_-sy8LhXACTI4mD2sHMonICNVTp9p.