Man with 100 pounds of explosive materials in Mayfair rowhouse pleads guilty to federal crimes
Evgenii Sadrislamov, 28, was arrested in October after police said they found a laboratory of explosives that could have leveled his entire block.
When Philadelphia law enforcement arrested Evgenii Sadrislamov last fall, they said he was engaged in a scheme to build weapons of mass destruction and had enough explosives inside his Northeast Philadelphia rowhouse to level his entire block.
But federal prosecutors who took the case have since indicated that Sadrislamov may have not been the bomb-building mastermind authorities initially believed.
If the 28-year-old agreed to plead guilty to two lesser crimes, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Reinitz said Monday, the government would drop the most serious charge and ask that he not spend more than 18 months in prison.
Sadrislamov agreed, and on Monday he pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally possessing explosives and storing them improperly inside of his Mayfair home.
Federal authorities have said little about the case publicly, and in court Monday they revealed few additional details about Sadrislamov’s intentions.
But their description of the evidence recovered from inside his home and their agreement to ask for a relatively light sentence suggested that Sadrislamov may have simply been building fireworks — not bombs intended to destroy a city neighborhood.
Sadrislamov, a Russian citizen, was arrested in October after Philadelphia police responded to the rowhouse he shared with his mother on the 7100 block of Montague Street. A neighbor had called to report colored smoke coming from the garage, and when firefighters entered the home, they said they encountered an explosives laboratory.
Reinitz said inside Sadrislamov’s bedroom and garage were 75 to 100 pounds of explosive materials, including homemade fireworks, loose and bagged powders, a 3D printer, fuses, and firework molds. Sadrislamov had a number of pyrotechnic textbooks and handwritten notes throughout the home, she said.
Sadrismalov was arrested in 2020 for building commercial-grade fireworks and pleaded guilty to criminal mischief in 2022. He was sentenced to four years’ probation, and because of this felony conviction, he was not permitted to own explosives.
But officials say he continued to order the materials to build explosives from companies in Georgia and Florida and then stored them unsafely and improperly inside his home.
On Monday, as U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III questioned Sadrislamov about the case and his decision to plead guilty, he admitted to the crimes through a Russian interpreter.
He said he had studied statistics and information technology at a university in Russia and had previously worked to install and adjust telecommunication towers. It’s not clear when he arrived in the U.S., what kinds of jobs he held here, or what his immigration status was at the time of his arrest.
Reinitz said the conviction would likely mean he would be removed from the country.
While Sadrislamov’s sentence will ultimately be determined by the judge, Reinitz said the government would ask for 12 to 18 months in prison. The crimes carry a combined maximum sentence of 11 years.
Reinitz declined to comment Monday. Sadrislamov’s attorney, Jeremy Isard, also declined to speak about the case ahead of the July sentencing.