The U.S. Department of Justice is fighting to keep Brad Spafford, the 36-year-old Isle of Wight County man accused of stockpiling the largest cache of homemade explosives ever seized by the FBI, behind bars.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Lawrence Leonard agreed on Dec. 30 to release Spafford on a $25,000 bond but stayed his order pending the DOJ’s appeal. In a same-day court filing appealing Leonard’s decision, Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Gantt characterized Spafford as “an extreme danger to the community, which cannot be sufficiently mitigated” by the electronic monitoring Leonard had mandated as a condition of Spafford’s release.

Lawrence Woodward, Spafford’s lead attorney, filed a motion in opposition to the DOJ’s appeal on Dec. 31, describing his client as “a hard-working family man with no criminal record.” According to the DOJ’s motion to revoke bond, Spafford lived at his home on Foursquare Road with two young children.

Spafford remained in custody at the Western Tidewater Regional Jail as of Jan. 2, according to jail records. He was arrested Dec. 17 while en route to Collins Machine Works, the Portsmouth-based industrial fabricator where he works.

Court records don’t presently list a new court date for the appeal of Leonard’s decision. The U.S. Attorney’s Office and Woodward did not immediately respond to The Smithfield Times’ request for comments.

Though Spafford presently faces only a single charge of possessing an unregistered short-barrel rifle, Gantt said at Spafford’s Dec. 30 hearing that “numerous potential additional charges” could be filed in connection with the FBI’s Dec. 18 raid of Spafford’s 20-acre Foursquare Road farm that the prosecution says resulted in the seizure of more than 150 homemade pipe bombs, some hand-labeled “lethal.” He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted on the illegal weapon charge alone.

Most of the bombs, according to court documents, were found in Spafford’s detached garage, 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.”

Detective Rachelanne Cardwell, a Suffolk police officer and member of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, testified at Spafford’s Dec. 30 hearing that Spafford allegedly told a confidential informant, whom he’d known as a police officer and former neighbor, that he owns an unregistered 10-inch barrel rifle.

The investigation began in 2023 when Spafford allegedly told the informant he’d lost several fingers to a homemade explosive explosive device on July 4, 2021.

Spafford allegedly told the informant in October 2024, two weeks after he purchased the Foursquare Road farm, that he’d moved many hundred-pound boxes of ammunition to the residence “but he does not have 10,000 rounds yet,” according to an affidavit supporting the criminal complaint. 

Cardwell testified that Spafford, in conversations with the informant, allegedly expressed a desire to “bring back political assassination” and had been using a photograph of President Joe Biden for target practice at a shooting range where he was pursuing a 300- to 400-yard sniper qualification. Following the July assassination attempt on then-candidate and now President-elect Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, Spafford allegedly remarked to the informant, “Bro, I hope they don’t miss Kamala,” referring to Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

Woodward and Spafford’s co-attorney, Jeffrey Swartz, wrote in their petition to uphold Leonard’s bond decision that the prosecution’s evidence was weak.

“The government argues that Mr. Spafford should be detained because he poses a danger to the community in spite of the fact that the government has been investigating and carefully watching Mr. Spafford for approximately two years through the use of a confidential human source who was a friend and confidant of Mr. Spafford,” the petition states. “During all of that time, there is no evidence or allegation that Mr. Spafford committed or attempted to commit any act of violence. … … There was no evidence that Mr. Spafford did anything other than make some ill-advised comments about the government and political leaders that are not illegal and are protected by the 1st Amendment. Using a likeness of a political leader as a target at a shooting range is a common practice and not a reason to incarcerate someone.” 

During Spafford’s bond hearing, Cardwell testified that FBI agents had found multiple canisters in a freezer in Spafford’s garage containing hexamethylene triperoxide diamine, or HMTD, which the U.S. director of national intelligence describes as a “highly sensitive explosive compound that is of interest to terrorists.” It was stored among frozen food.

Cardwell said it is made using common household chemicals. According to Gantt’s court filing, HMTD is “so unstable it can be exploded merely as a result of friction.”

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

If Spafford is released, Leonard has mandated that, in addition to the required electronic monitoring, the suspect be restricted to his mother’s house when not traveling to and from work, medical or religious services or meetings with his attorneys, and not possess any firearms or destructive devices.