A federal judge has set a May 28 trial date for the Isle of Wight County man accused of stockpiling what a federal prosecutor described as the largest cache of homemade explosives ever seized by the FBI.

Appearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas Miller on Jan. 15, Brad Spafford, 36, pleaded not guilty to two felony charges: possessing an unregistered short-barrel rifle and possessing an unregistered destructive device.

He’d been arrested on Dec. 17. On Dec. 18, FBI agents who raided his Foursquare Road home say they found the illegal gun and more than 150 homemade pipe bombs, some hand-labeled “lethal.” His latest court appearance comes a week after a federal grand jury found probable cause Jan. 8 to support both charges.

Spafford waived his right to a speedy trial due to the complexity of the case, according to court records. He’s been in custody at the Western Tidewater Regional Jail in Suffolk since his arrest and will remain there until his trial date.

Another judge had set a $25,000 bond on Dec. 30 but agreed to delay Spafford’s release. A third judge 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 that he shared with his two small children.

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 the U.S. director of national intelligence describes as a “highly sensitive explosive compound that is of interest to terrorists.” 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.

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 the bomb squad had safely detonated most of the explosives on site but kept nine for evidence.

Cardwell testified that the investigation began in 2023 when Spafford allegedly told an informant, whom he’d known as a friend and neighbor from before he moved in October to the Isle of Wight County residence, that he’d lost several fingers to a homemade explosive device on Jan. 4, 2021. He allegedly told the same informant that he owns an unregistered 10-inch barrel rifle.

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.