Brad Spafford, the Isle of Wight County man accused of stockpiling more than 150 pipe bombs, won’t stand trial this month.

A federal judge had set a May 28 trial date in January when Spafford, 36, pleaded not guilty to two felony charges: possessing an unregistered short-barrel rifle and possessing an unregistered destructive device. The charges stem from a Dec. 18 FBI raid at his Foursquare Road home that found what a federal prosecutor described as the largest cache of homemade explosives ever seized by the FBI.

On May 8, U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen granted a joint motion by prosecutors and Spafford’s attorneys to delay the trial. Court filings say the “parties require additional time to adequately prepare for trial” and to “discuss a possible pre-trial resolution of the matter.”

Allen ordered that Spafford’s attorneys confer with prosecutors within seven days of her order to reschedule the trial.

Court filings say the evidence that both parties will need to review before making their cases “is very substantial” and includes the “seizure of over a dozen electronic devices,” including the “defendant’s principal phone.” The evidence also “includes months of pole camera footage.”

The unregistered destructive device charge, which a federal grand jury added when it indicted him on Jan. 8, pertains to a single device. Court filings say FBI laboratory reports on the other seized devices, “while initially estimated to be completed by the end of March, are not yet finalized” and as such, “the United States is unable to proceed with a potential superseding indictment until it receives such reports.”

Spafford has remained in custody at the Western Tidewater Regional Jail in Suffolk since his Dec. 17 arrest. Another judge had set a $25,000 bond on Dec. 30 but agreed to delay Spafford’s release pending the government’s appeal. Allen overturned the release order on Jan. 7, finding Spafford to have “shown the capacity for extreme danger” by allegedly storing some of the pipe bombs in an unsecured backpack in the residence he shared with his wife and two small children.

Spafford is represented by attorneys Jeffrey Swartz of the Norfolk firm Swartz, Taliaferro, Swartz & Goodove P.C. and Lawrence Woodward Jr. of the Virginia Beach firm Ruloff, Swain, Haddad, Morecock, Talbert & Woodward P.C.

Most of the bombs, according to court documents, were found in Spafford’s detached garage in a freezer alongside frozen food, but some were found unsecured in the home’s bedroom in a backpack labeled “#nolivesmatter,” which the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness describes as an “accelerationist extremist ideology” that “promotes targeted attacks, mass killings and criminal activity, and has historically encouraged members to engage in self-harm and animal abuse.”

Prosecutors say the seized explosives included multiple canisters of hexamethylene triperoxide diamine, or HMTD, which a former director of national intelligence had described as a “highly sensitive explosive compound that is of interest to terrorists.” The web page has since been removed from DNI.gov.

Court records show the FBI also found a notebook in Spafford’s residence that contained recipes and inventory, including a recipe for homemade C-4, a military-grade explosive that requires a license for civilian use.  

The FBI investigation began in 2023 when Spafford allegedly told an informant, whom he’d known as a neighbor from before he moved to Isle of Wight, that he’d lost several fingers to a homemade explosive device on July 4, 2021. He allegedly told the same informant that he owns an unregistered 10-inch barrel rifle. Federal law defines an illegal short-barrel rifle as one less than 16 inches long.

Detective Rachelanne Cardwell, a Suffolk police officer and member of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, testified at Spafford’s Dec. 30 hearing that Spafford, in conversations with the informant, expressed a desire to “bring back political assassination” and had used a photograph of former President Joe Biden for target practice at a shooting range where he was pursuing a 300- to 400-yard sniper qualification. He also allegedly admitted in conversations with the informant to owning the unregistered short-barrel rifle and said that he “did not believe in registering firearms.”  Following the July assassination attempt on then-candidate and now President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, Spafford allegedly remarked to the informant something along the lines of “Bro, I hope they don’t miss Kamala,” referring to former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.  Spafford’s lawyers, in court filings, characterized his alleged remarks as “ill-advised comments about the government and political leaders that are not illegal and are protected by the 1st Amendment.”

While his attorneys have asserted that Spafford never made any explicit threats, prosecutors allege in court filings that Spafford was “planning something” he “could not do alone.”