Feds can't sell booby-trapped property of terrorist tax evaders

These things happened in the United States this year. An unarmed man was killed by police, supposedly for stealing some cigars. Those who took to the streets simply seeking truth, among them some looters, were denounced by some conservatives and an entire news network as "thugs" and "lynch mobs." Just months earlier, a Nevada tax cheat owing the federal government a million dollars welcomed dozens of heavily armed militia members who threatened to murder government officials. An entire news network and a Republican United States senator called them "patriots" and "freedom riders." (The FBI suffers from no such confusion: the Bureau under the last three presidents has labelled Cliven Bundy's ilk "domestic terrorists.")
But while all eyes have been focused on Ferguson, Missouri, the latest chapter in the saga of another terrorist tax evader was quietly being written in New Hampshire. There, federal officials were unable to sell the properties confiscated from Ed and Elaine Brown because prospective buyers the lands and buildings might be booby-trapped.
As the AP reported:

The auction of Ed and Elaine Brown's fortress-like home on 100 acres in Plainfield was held at U.S. District Court in Concord on Friday. The minimum bid was $250,000.

Elaine Brown's dental office in a prime Lebanon commercial zone also was being auctioned with a minimum bid of $507,500, but it too attracted no bidders.
Federal marshals had arranged 16 folding chairs in a courtroom at the federal courthouse in Concord. They remained empty, serving as a stark reminder of the lack of interest as Deputy Chief U.S. Marshal Brenda Mikelson went through the motions of asking for minimum bids on both properties before the auction ended two minutes later.
Prospective bidders were not allowed to tour the properties, in part because the U.S. Marshals Service raised the possibility that explosives or other booby traps could be buried on the residential property.
They also cited the hordes of Brown supporters the 2007 standoff attracted.

That's right. Years before militia members with automatic weapons descended on Cliven Bundy's ranch to enable him to continue to collect "food stamps" for cows, Ed and Elaine Brown were threatening federal marshals simply trying to collect what the tax deadbeats owed Uncle Sam.

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