Man accused of stockpiling 150 homemade bombs must stay in jail until trial, judge rules

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A Virginia man accused of stockpiling the largest number of finished explosives in FBI history and using President Joe Biden's photo for target practice must stay in jail until trial, a federal judge ruled, writing that he has “shown the capacity for extreme danger.”

Brad Spafford, 36, is being held on a federal firearms charge for allegedly owning an unregistered short-barrel rifle. Prosecutors say he faces more potential charges for the explosives, including devices found in a backpack labeled “#nolivesmatter.”

Spafford, a father of two young daughters, also stored a highly unstable explosive material in a garage freezer next to “Hot Pockets and frozen corn on the cob," according to court documents.

In a ruling late Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen in Norfolk noted that Spafford lost three fingers in an accident involving homemade explosives in 2021, something she said his defense attorneys have not disputed.

“Mr. Spafford has specifically stated that he does not believe in Government regulation when it comes to firearms, and he intentionally flouted the requirements for registration of short-barrel rifles,” Allen wrote. “The Court is not confident that Mr. Spafford would be any more respectful of the imposed conditions of release.”

Defense attorneys had argued that authorities haven’t produced evidence that Spafford was planning violence. They also noted that Spafford, who is married and works a steady job as a machinist, has no criminal record.

His attorneys also questioned whether the explosive devices found on Spafford's property were usable because “professionally trained explosive technicians had to rig the devices to explode them.”

“There is not a shred of evidence in the record that Mr. Spafford ever threatened anyone and the contention that someone might be in danger because of their political views and comments is nonsensical,” his defense lawyers wrote in a recent filing.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Swartz said at Spafford's detention hearing last week that investigators had gathered information on him since January 2023, during which Spafford never threatened anyone.

“And what has he done during those two years?" Swartz said. "He purchased a home. He’s raised his children. He’s in a great marriage. He has a fantastic job, and those things all still exist for him.”

Investigators, however, said they had limited knowledge of the homemade bombs until the informant visited Spafford's home, federal prosecutors wrote in a filing Tuesday.

“But once the defendant stated on a recorded wire that he had an unstable primary explosive in the freezer in October 2024, the government moved swiftly,” prosecutors wrote.

Investigators seized more than 150 pipe bombs and other homemade devices when they searched Spafford's Isle of Wight County home in December, the prosecutors said in court filings.

Most of the bombs were found in a detached garage, along with tools and bomb-making materials including fuses and pieces of plastic pipe, according to court documents.

“Several additional apparent pipe bombs were found in a backpack in the home’s bedroom, completely unsecured,” in the house he shares with his wife and children, prosecutors also wrote.

The investigation began in 2023 when an informant told authorities that Spafford was stockpiling weapons and ammunition, according to court documents. The informant, a friend and member of law enforcement, told authorities that Spafford was using pictures of the president for target practice and that “he believed political assassinations should be brought back,” prosecutors wrote.

Numerous law enforcement officers and bomb technicians searched the property on Dec. 17. The agents located the rifle and the explosive devices, some of which had been hand-labeled as “lethal” and some of which were loaded into a wearable vest, court documents state. Technicians detonated most of the devices on site because they were deemed unsafe to transport, though several were kept for analysis.

At a hearing last week, federal Magistrate Judge Lawrence Leonard determined that Spafford could be released into house arrest at his mother’s home but agreed to keep him detained while the government files further arguments.

In response, prosecutors acknowledged that Spafford “is not known to have engaged in any apparent violence.”

But they argued that Spafford "has certainly expressed interest in the same, through his manufacture of pipe bombs marked ‘lethal,’ his possession of riot gear and a vest loaded with pipe bombs, his support for political assassinations and use of the pictures of the President for target practice, and his belief that ‘no lives matter.’

In Tuesday's ruling, Allen wrote that the degree of danger that Spafford posed to his own family and community was “extreme” and noted “the sheer scale of the enterprise.”

“The Court has not found a comparable case in terms of scale,” she wrote, "but even cases involving smaller numbers of destructive devices and other factors that were positive for the defendant have resulted in detention."