By Lee Williams
SAF Investigative Journalism Project
Matthew Larosiere, an appellate attorney for Patrick “Tate” Adamiak, will argue his client’s innocence Sept. 12 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Virginia.
However, Adamiak won’t be there. He will remain behind bars in a federal prison in New Jersey. It is not yet clear how the courtroom testimony will be made available to the public.
What happens next is anyone’s guess.
The appellate court usually renders a decision within 30 to 60 days after hearing the oral arguments.
“We’ll get an opinion, either reversing or affirming. They could say there are no changes, that the District Court did everything right,” Adamiak said from his New Jersey federal prison. “They could send me back for a whole new trial. They could affirm some of the five counts and reverse others. I could be resentenced for just the remaining counts. Hypothetically, say we defeat the missile launcher charges, we will go back for resentencing on lesser charges.”
Adamiak, who is now 31, and has served roughly three years of his 20-year federal sentence, wants complete exoneration since he believes he did nothing wrong.
“Obviously, my whole goal is to defeat them all – all of the charges – but even if I don’t beat them all and they release me, even if I go home, I will still pursue a pardon, just so I can have all of my rights back,” he said.
Almost all of the “weapons” that led to Adamiak’s 20-year prison sentence are not even weapons. They can still be purchased online without identification, since they are gun parts, not guns. The prosecution has never fully addressed this.
Instead, federal prosecutors misstated the facts, telling the court that Adamiak possessed fully functional machineguns. Adamiak’s trial was the first time the government’s firearm “expert,” ATF Firearms Enforcement Officer Jeffrey Bodell, had ever testified at a trial.
Bodell turned an actual toy into a machinegun, legal inert RPGs into destructive devices and 100% legal semi-autos into machineguns. All of what Bodell insisted were illegal items are still sold legally online: Inert RPGs, toy STENs, demilled submachinegun receivers and especially open-bolt semi-autos.
Battling Biden’s ATF
Adamiak had no criminal record when the ATF crashed through his doors on April 7, 2022. In fact, he was scheduled to begin more than a year of extremely arduous training to become a U.S. Navy SEAL. Today, he knows very clearly who is responsible for his 20-year federal prison sentence.
“The ATF were weaponized against the Second Amendment under the Biden administration, and my case is clear evidence of this abuse of power,” he said. “I can’t say what the government attorneys or ATF agents true motivation was. I don’t know if it was political, a step toward career advancement, a quota or a combination of the three, but one thing is certain: This didn’t happen to me because I was a criminal or posed any sort of threat to the community. They used me as an example, as a deterrent. They used me as a pawn in a larger effort to appear tough on guns, and I was the fall guy, despite committing no crime whatsoever. It was about egos and instilling fear in people who dare exercise their Second Amendment rights.”
Adamiak saw the ATF’s misdeeds firsthand when they offered him a plea deal. If he admitted that he knowingly and willfully possessed 25 machineguns, prosecutors would only recommend a seven-year prison sentence.
“They wanted me to sign my life away, end my naval career, abandon my relationship and become a felon for 25 items that to this day – unambiguously and objectively – do not qualify as firearms, never mind machineguns,” he said.
Adamiak was convicted because prosecutors and the ATF’s “expert” made up their own evidence as well as their own version of federal law.
“Just because the ATF says something is an NFA item doesn’t mean it is, and I hope someone in this administration has the courage to acknowledge this fact and do the right thing before more of my life is wasted away,” Adamiak said. “This case exemplifies a deeply flawed system that prioritizes securing convictions over achieving justice. My sentencing was based on lies and exaggerations about my legal collection of historical memorabilia. The government’s overreach distorted my case from the start. They weaponized the ATF’s authority to artificially inflate charges and sentenced me based on fabricated evidence. The entire system failed me.”
Will Trump’s ATF help?
If President Donald Trump’s ATF believes Adamiak is actually guilty, all they need to do is explain why. Try telling him which federal law he broke, and good luck finding one.
Adamiak’s case could be a very opportune way for Trump’s ATF to prove they are no longer targeting law-abiding gun owners because of intense pressure from the White House.
I called ATF’s Deputy Director Robert Cekada to talk to him about this. He’s actually ATF’s number two man, since ATF’s Acting Director, Daniel Driscoll, is fairly busy. Driscoll is also serving as the 26th Secretary of the Army.
I am still waiting for Deputy Director Cekada to return my call.
