Sixteen months after their armed standoff with federal officials ended in a peaceful, undercover arrest, Ed and Elaine Brown were back in New Hampshire yesterday to face weapons and conspiracy charges for their activities.

If found guilty, the couple could receive what amount to life sentences. Just one charge, for possession of destructive devices, carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison.

The Browns, who were convicted of tax-related felonies in January 2007, fled authorities and holed up in their fortified and well-provisioned Plainfield home for nearly nine months. They entertained guests, accumulated weapons, spoke with news reporters and threatened violence against any agent who tried to arrest them.

An 11-count indictment unsealed yesterday accuses the Browns of conspiring with supporters to interfere with arrest attempts and stockpile weapons and homemade bombs. The indictment describes pipe bombs, exploding rifle targets, improvised booby trap guns and cans of gunpowder wrapped with nails. In testimony during the trial of several supporters last year, federal agents described finding Ed Brown's fingerprints on several of the devices, which were scattered strategically around the house near detonation cords, matches and high-powered rifles.

Throughout their tax trial and the standoff, the Browns challenged the authority of the federal government, saying repeatedly that no law required them to pay taxes and that they were not subject to federal jurisdiction.

During their separate arraignments in Concord yesterday, the couple maintained their positions. Though they were not allowed to speak to each other before the hearings, they both rejected appointed counsel, refused to offer pleas and expressed their view that the indictment was invalid.

"I am not the person on this indictment," Elaine Brown, 68, told federal Magistrate Judge James Muirhead yesterday. "I do not plan on taking part in any proceeding on it whatsoever."

Elaine Brown, who appeared in a green prison uniform and slip-on sneakers, looked transformed by her incarceration. Her previously coifed brown hair was gray and cut short. She wore no makeup, and she appeared to have lost weight. In letters to supporters posted online, she has complained about the prison food.

After Elaine Brown entered the courtroom, she began writing on papers at the defense table. Muirhead later read the papers and described them as an offer of a promissory bond of $1 billion and a "private offset bond" of $2 billion "so she and her husband can go free." Muirhead said he could not accept them.

Though she was seated next to Bjorn Lange, a federal public defender who assisted her in the final two days of her tax trial, Elaine Brown told Muirhead that she did not wish to have a lawyer. Lange, who avoided calling her by name, agreed to serve as her standby counsel and recommended that Muirhead enter a plea of not guilty on her behalf.

"I'm satisfied that the woman beside me has sufficiently understood," he told Muirhead near the end of the hearing.

'A higher law'

Ed Brown, 66, similarly rejected the court's authority, refusing to agree that he understood the constitutional rights that Muirhead described. He rejected the assistance of Michael Iacopino, a Manchester attorney who was appointed to assist him, though he said that he would accept a "council" of legal advisers.

"It's not the type of law that we operate under," Ed Brown said. "It's a higher law."

Ed Brown appeared in court in leg shackles, wearing a neon orange Strafford County jail uniform with his familiar gray mustache and glasses. For most of the hearing, he sat with his hands clasped in his lap, raising his eyebrows, scrunching his face and shrugging as Muirhead asked him questions. Like his wife, he unsuccessfully suggested a bond in exchange for their freedom, but Ed Brown offered more: $5 billion.

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