FORT SMITH -- A jury trial for a man arrested in February after federal agents said they found an explosive device in his residence has been postponed.
U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes signed an order Monday granting a motion from Neil Ravi Mehta, 31, of Fort Smith for a continuance. Mehta's jury trial now is set for 9 a.m. July 17 in Fort Smith, according to court records. The trial had originally been set for April 3.
Mehta pleaded innocent March 9 to one count each of possession of an unregistered destructive device and possession of a destructive device unidentified by serial number.
Mehta was arrested Feb. 6 in Austin, Texas, on charges related to possessing an improvised bomb that wasn't registered to him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record as required by law, according to a Feb. 7 news release from the U.S. attorney's office for the Western District of Arkansas. His arrest came at the end of a six-day nationwide manhunt.
Mehta was initially charged in a criminal complaint filed Jan. 31 with one count of unlawful possession of an unregistered destructive device.
Law enforcement officers found the device in the kitchen of Mehta's Fort Smith residence Jan. 31, according to the complaint. Bomb technicians X-rayed the device and determined it possibly contained a "combination of hazardous materials." An officer with the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives remotely reviewed the device that same day.
The attorneys representing Mehta, W.H. Taylor and Terry Harper of the Fayetteville-based firm Taylor Law Partners, filed the motion for a continuance March 15, according to court records.
The motion states Taylor and Harper had been put on notice that Mehta was being investigated for other charges in addition to the two he is currently facing. They requested an approximately 90-day continuance to give them more time to comb through the "volumes upon volumes" of information they anticipate this matter entailing and to hire potential experts to assist in Mehta's defense.
Charlie Robbins, public information officer for the U.S. attorney's office for the Western District of Arkansas, said Mehta is being held at the Washington County jail in Fayetteville. He faces a maximum prison sentence of 10 years and a maximum fine of $250,000, both on each count, if convicted.