Former sailor should be pardoned, ATF agents should be charged

Presidential pardon may be the only way to free Patrick "Tate" Adamiak.

Patrick “Tate” Adamiak’s booking photo. (Photo courtesy of Adamiak family).

by Lee Williams

The ATF, federal prosecutors and what’s left of Joe Biden’s supporters in the federal government still want you to believe that their case against former U.S. Navy sailor Patrick “Tate” Adamiak is complex and confusing, involving convoluted weapon systems and rare gun parts that only a true firearm expert can fully understand. That is why Adamiak was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in a federal prison, they would have you believe.

This, friends, is pure bunk.

We have examined the entire list of the guns and gun parts that were found after ATF decided to raid Adamiak’s home. Not a single item—not one—was illegal for him to possess. Some of the items that were actually used as evidence against him in court are laughable, or at least they would be if Adamiak wasn’t about to start the third year of his 20-year sentence.

Every single one of the items seized as evidence and used against him in court is still legally sold online. Most can be purchased without any paperwork because they are not firearms.

This is what the ATF does not want the public to know, that all their so-called illegal evidence was perfectly legal, and that all of their courtroom testimony was nothing but lies.

Some quick examples:

Inert RPGs

Adamiak had two nonfunctional RPGs that were marked “INERT” and “TRAINING AID DUMMY.” Neither one could fire an RPG rocket, which are illegal and impossible to find in the United States. Both training aids had been stripped of any trigger parts. Most damning to the state’s case were the large holes that were drilled into the receivers, which made actual firing of the devices lethal to the operator.

Holes drilled into Adamiak’s inert RPGs are located where an operator’s face would be when firing. (Photo courtesy of Adamiak).

Even one of the government’s own witnesses, Gregory Pruess, a criminal informant who was paid $8,000 for his participation in the case and was told that felony gun charges he faced would be dropped if he helped that ATF secure a conviction against Adamiak, testified that the hole would “blow your head off” if anyone attempted to fire a live rocket from the launcher.

But this didn’t stop the prosecution’s main witness, ATF Firearms Enforcement Officer Jeffrey Bodell. He added parts to the RPG’s triggers and got them to fire one rifle round through his sub-caliber training device, without telling the court that the training device can fire 7.62x39mm rifle rounds on its own, whether it’s attached to a suspected RPG or not.

Both of Adamiak’s inert RPGs were missing all of the critical fire control components, which were never found in his possession. As a result, case law was on Adamiak’s side. According to United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Douglas Blackburn, Defendant-appellant, 940 F.2d 107 (4th Cir. 1991), a defendant “may be penalized for only the number of destructive devices which may be ‘readily assembled’ from the parts in his possession. A defendant must possess every essential part necessary to construct a destructive device.”

Adamiak never had any or the fire control components, but Bodell did, and he used them to impress the court. If Adamiak was never charged with possessing the 100% legal RPGs, he would be out of prison right now: His sentence would have ended. This is almost as aggravating as the fact that inert RPGs like his are still sold legally online.

GunBroker.com offers inert RPG-2 rockets for $120.00, a nonfiring RPG-7 replica for $395.00, or an inert Russian RPG-2 rocket launcher package with rocket, firing pin and hard case for $1,200.00. Spare ammo, inert RPG-7 HEAT rockets, run around $229.00.

Toy submachinegun

Adamiak once bought a replica STEN Mk. II submachinegun at a local gun show. He paid $75 for the non-firing Spanish replica—or toy—which was made by Denix and is still sold online for hundreds of dollars more.

This legal toy, Adamiak believes, is one of the main reasons why he is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

Eventually, using the real machinegun bolt and barrel and some electrical tape, Bodell was able to load one round by hand and get the toy STEN to fire a live round.

“I pulled the bolt to the rear until it engaged with the sear, inserted one cartridge into the chamber of the barrel, and pulled the trigger. The Exhibit successfully expelled a projectile by the action of an explosive,” Bodell wrote in his report.

Even worse, Bodell classified the toy, which are still legally sold online, as a machinegun, even though it wouldn’t even accept a real STEN magazine and could only be loaded one round at a time.

Open-bolt semi-autos

Bodell test fired five of Adamiak’s very expensive and extremely collectible legal semi-auto pistols, which fire from an open bolt. All he could achieve was semi-automatic fire, but that didn’t stop him. He classified all five highly sought after pistols as machineguns. These semi-autos are still legal, very collectible and legally sold. Today, one can fetch from $3,000 to $5,000, and they can still be purchased just like any other firearm, with only an ATF Form 4473 and background check.

Presidential pardon

Bodell’s lies were many but very effective in this prosecution, unfortunately.

He actually turned toys into firearms, legal 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, submachinegun receivers and especially open-bolt semi-autos.

In fact, not one of the items Bodell examined was illegal to own.

Therefore, if Adamiak committed no crime, why is he still serving a 20-year sentence at a federal prison in New Jersey? The answer is simple: The ATF didn’t want to look bad, again, or at least any worse than it already did, after its agents kicked open the door of yet another innocent man’s home.

Adamiak’s legal appeal is working slowly through the system. But the quickest way he could walk out of prison as a free man would be a presidential pardon.

If President Donald Trump needs to know what kind of a man he’d be pardoning, Adamiak would be the perfect choice. All he wants is to resume his career in our Navy. He’s honest, selfless and dedicated to serving our great country. And he committed no crime, not a single one.

This trial was the first for both Adamiak and Bodell, who at the time had been with the ATF for less than two years. Bodell’s newness showed.

If the ATF continues to allow Bodell’s misdeeds to stand and takes no disciplinary or criminal action against him, it will cease being a federal law enforcement agency. Instead, in the opinion of very many, the ATF will remain nothing but a bunch of brazen thugs with badges and guns, who don’t care about anyone’s civil rights, as long as they can make an arrest.

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