U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class (E-6) Patrick "Tate" Adamiak received a 20-year prison sentence after a jury found him guilty on Oct. 21, 2022 for illegally selling machine guns and possessing grenade launchers.
But it’s all nonsense. His conviction is a travesty, and if President Trump is in the market for a worthy person to pardon, he need look no further than this young sailor.
During a six-year period beginning 2016, Adamiak bought, sold and traded thousands of gun parts through Gun Trader, then later his own website. He intended to acquire enough items to open a military museum when he eventually separated from the Navy.
One of the items leading to his conviction was a replica World War II-era STEN Mk. II submachine gun, described as a toy, that he had purchased at a local gun show for $75.
Despite being a replica, the ATF tried to make it work.
They inserted a real machine gun bolt and swapped the toy barrel with a real one, using electrical tape to make it fit. But no matter what they tried, they couldn’t insert an ammunition magazine into the toy’s magazine well.
So they inserted a single round into the chamber, fired it, then declared it was a functioning, fully automatic machine gun. It wasn’t even a semi-automatic, which is legal to possess anywhere in the United States.
Adamiak was also charged with possessing four partially-finished exterior plates, two left and two right, for a belt-fed M240 machine gun. There were no internal parts, no actual receiver mechanism — just the plates.
The ATF called them four machine guns. "[T]his would be like saying possessing the driver’s side and passenger side door of a car is equivalent to possessing two entire cars," Adamiak observed.
He also had two inert, replica rocket propelled grenade launchers, used for training or display purposes. They were both dummies: one was marked "inert" and the other "training aid."
The ATF used them to enhance his sentence.
"I never sold a single item that qualifies as a firearm or requires an FFL I only sold non-regulated gun parts," Adamiak said, according to the Second Amendment Foundation.
"It’s my opinion and my family’s that the ATF realized they messed up after they didn’t come up with a single illegal weapon, so they completely reinterpreted the statutes and implemented new rules to spin the jury and get a conviction. They manufactured crimes convict me."
He’s not alone in that assessment. Retired ATF Senior Special Agent Daniel O’Kelly agrees.
During his 24 years with the ATF and 10 years as a police officer, O’Kelly has examined more than 100,000 firearms. Today, as director of the International Firearm Specialist Academy, his clients include prosecutors and defense attorneys, law enforcement agencies, gun dealers and firearm manufacturers, importers and collectors.
He was hired by Adamiak’s defense attorney as an expert witness, but was blocked from testifying at every turn by ATF lawyers. But he’s not blocked from speaking publicly now.
When asked whether Adamiak should be sitting in a prison cell, O’Kelly replied "No. For the items brought before me, he should not be in prison," and added that the ATF misled the defense team throughout the trial.
"His attorney and I were not given accurate information. I had the impression at the time of the trial that the ATF had not accurately identified the items. I had the impression that some could have been ineligible. Since then, I have found out that some weren’t firearms."
O’Kelly was also asked how something like this could even happen. "That’s easy to answer," he said. "The ATF needs numbers to justify its existence. Each agent has to produce cases in order to justify their existence."
He added that the ATF training is dismal, so much so that when they examine weapons, they often don’t know what they’re even looking at.
Adamiak had plans to enter U.S. Navy SEAL training right about now, but that dream will likely never be realized. His current goal is to get his conviction reversed, and the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments on his case in mid-September.
Meanwhile, Adamiak’s supporters have launched an information site and petition drive called Freedom For Tate. Although his case has received a fair amount of media coverage, most of it has been by gun rights organizations and Second Amendment news sites.
This would be a great case for President Trump to follow, and one in which he has the power to reverse a miscarriage of justice.
While Democrats demand "justice" for criminal illegal aliens, it’d be better to give justice to someone who actually deserves it — a wrongfully convicted U.S. Navy veteran.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and is a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He's also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and a Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.