NORFOLK: Federal officials seized one of the largest stocks of homemade bombs always when they detained a Virginia person on a firearms charge last month, according to a court filing from federal prosecution. When investigators searched Brad Spafford’s house north of Norfolk in December, they discovered more than 150 homemade bombs and other items, according to a motion filed on Monday.
According to the prosecution, this is” the largest seize in FBI history’s variety of finished explosive equipment.”
According to court documents, the majority of the weapons were discovered in a detached door at the house in Isle of Wight County, along with equipment and pieces of plastic hose used to make bombs, including fuses and pieces of vinyl tube.
The prosecution also wrote:” Some more obvious pipe bombs were found in a handbag in the home’s room, completely unprotected”, in the home he shares with his wife and two younger children.
Spafford, 36, was accused of possessing a weapon in contravention of the National Firearms Act. He is alleged to have a short-barreled, unregulated rifle. Lawyers said that he faces “numerous more probable fees” related to the explosives.
He has no criminal record, according to defense attorneys ‘ claims in a motion on Tuesday that authorities haven’t produced any proof that he was planning violence. Additionally, they are debating whether the incendiary devices could have been used because “professionally trained incendiary technicians had to rig the devices so that they could blow.”
The defense attorneys wrote,” The claim that someone might be in risk because of their political opinions and feedback is nonsensical and there is not a shred of evidence in the report that Mr. Spafford always threatened people.”
On Wednesday, messages were left asking for further clarification from Lawrence Woodward and Jerry Swartz, the defense attorneys who signed the action.
According to court records, an applicant informed authorities that Spafford was saving munitions and weapons in the year 2023. The agent, a pal, told authorities Spafford had disfigured his hands in 2021 while working on homemade bombs.
Lawyers claimed that he only has two fingers on his proper side. The agent informed regulators that Spafford was using images of the leader for specific purposes and that “he believed political killings may be brought back,” according to the prosecution.
On December 17, many law enforcement officers and bomb personnel conducted a search of the home. According to court documents, the officials discovered the rifle and the explosives, some of which had been hand-described as “lethal” and some of which had been loaded into a portable coat. Although some of the devices were kept for study, technicians detonated the majority of them because they were deemed illegal to transport.
Federal Magistrate Judge Lawrence Leonard agreed to keep Spafford locked up while the federal files further explanations at a reading on Tuesday, but he was given the option of placing him under house arrest at his family’s home.
In reply, prosecutors reiterated why they thought Spafford was dangerous and argued that while he was not known to have engaged in any obvious violence, that he had expressed interest in the situation by making bishop bombs that were “absolutely deadly, having riot gear and coat full of tube bombs, supporting political assassinations, and using the President’s pictures for specific practice.”
