<\/a> by <\/span>Lee Williams<\/a><\/p>\n Patrick \u201cTate\u201d Adamiak never sold a single real firearm\u2014not one\u2014even though he sold thousands of dollars per month of military gear and gun parts legally on his former website.<\/p>\n Adamiak was one of <\/span>Gun Broker<\/a>\u2019s top 500 dealers, until the ATF decided to target him personally and lie under oath about the facts of his case. Now, unless someone quickly rights this unconstitutional wrong, Adamiak will be held in federal prison until 2042.<\/span><\/p>\n Adamiak, clearly, is the type of American most people admire.<\/p>\n \u201cI am extremely patriotic. My whole life has been that way,\u201d he told the Second Amendment Foundation by phone from a federal prison in New Jersey. \u201cI am still proud to be American, proud of our flag and proud to be in this country. I have always had a strong desire to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Adamiak enlisted in the Navy when he was 17, and eventually became an E-6 Master-at-Arms. He has a bachelor\u2019s degree and was working on a master\u2019s until his arrest. He was on track for an officer\u2019s commission within Naval Special Warfare.<\/p>\n \u201cI was pursuing becoming a SEAL officer,\u201d he said. \u201cI went to California for the first phase. A few months after that I was arrested, after a decade of working my ass off.\u201d<\/p>\n He has always been \u201cinto guns.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy dad started teaching firearm safety,\u201d he said. \u201cI had BB-guns, and then I got my first rifle when I was eight. Since then, I\u2019ve been hooked. I started collecting military gear and guns until I had a vast collection. This was our hobby together \u2013 me and my dad. We were building a collection together. I have about 150 firearms in my collection,\u201d Adamiak said.<\/p>\n By 2016, his personal collection was gaining serious momentum.<\/p>\n \u201cI was buying guns, military surplus and replica firearms,\u201d he said. \u201cMy idea was to build a military display museum. I started buying, selling and trading to start my business, while I was in the Navy.\u201d<\/p>\n Adamiak\u2019s hobby quickly turned into a side-hustle \u2013 a hobby or pastime that pays for itself.<\/p>\n \u201cI started focusing on that,\u201d he said. \u201cI got an LLC, a business license and a tax number. I started selling on Gun Broker. I became one of the top 500 sellers of niche gun parts. I\u2019d buy in bulk and sell off a couple items. That\u2019s how my business started, and it really took off.\u201d<\/p>\n Adamiak was contacted by another large dealer who had similar interests and owns a military surplus museum.<\/p>\n \u201cBasically, I put in a big list\u2014a bulk order,\u201d he said. \u201cHe started shipping to me every two or three weeks. I would buy at wholesale prices. It was completely legal\u2014a big bunch of gun stuff. I obtained a replica Mark 19 grenade launcher and a replica M240 machinegun, which they later lied about at my trial.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n The confidential informant, or CI, that brought Adamiak\u2019s freedom to an end was cooperating with the ATF to work off charges of his own.<\/p>\n \u201cHe used to own a machinegun shop,\u201d Adamiak said. \u201cThe ATF raided his house, found a gun and charged him with felon in possession. He kept asking me for a machinegun, which I never got him. I got him a shroud off of Gun Broker. The ATF paid him around $8,000 for my case alone.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTo be clear, I never sold a single item that qualifies as a firearm or requires an FFL (Federal Firearm License). Only non-regulated gun parts,\u201d Adamiak said.<\/p>\n While dropping off gear at Adamiak\u2019s home, the CI saw the replica grenade launcher and belt-fed machinegun replicas. He asked Adamiak if he had an SOT (Class 3 FFL).<\/p>\n “No, they’re replicas,\u201d Adamiak replied. \u201cThat was the end of the conversation. We finished trading and bartering and he left.\u201d<\/p>\n From this point forward, Adamiak said he became the target of a \u201cfishing expedition by the ATF.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was repeatedly asked by various people if I had machineguns for sale, and my answer never changed: No!\u201d he said. \u201cThey attempted over and over again to have me source or put together a machinegun for them, but as a law-abiding citizen, I refused. I even cited NFA rules on several occasions in writing. I wouldn’t even bend a MAC-10 flat for them, which they asked me to do many times.\u201d<\/p>\n Adamiak did agree to broker the purchase of a PPSh-41 barrel shroud for a client. The part does not qualify as a firearm.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was literally purchased in open commerce, with a business check, from a confirmed FFL as an unregulated part directly off of Gun Broker,\u201d he said. \u201cEvidently, the ATF must have realized this was the closest thing they could get from me to a firearm, but what they really wanted was to get in my house to see the Mark 19 and the M240 replicas that their CI was boasting about.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen applying for their search warrant the ATF told the judge in a criminal complaint that at issue was the PPSh-41 barrel shroud that they said was a machinegun, but that was not even close, legally,\u201d Adamiak said.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n More than 40 federal agents and police officers raided Adamiak\u2019s home and a rental property he owned. Agents came from the ATF, FBI, HIS, NCIS, SWAT, Bomb Squad and local police.<\/p>\n \u201cThey turned my house upside-down, but did not find a single functional machinegun or destructive device,\u201d Adamiak said.<\/p>\n The agents seized about 35 replica firearms and parts from Adamiak\u2019s personal collection and labeled them \u201csuspected machineguns and destructive devices.\u201d<\/p>\n Most worrisome, the agents seized money and silver Adamiak collected as \u201cproceeds of illegal activity,\u201d including his antique currency collection, which was worth thousands of dollars. Eventually, hiring an attorney was difficult for Adamiak because law enforcement took all of his savings.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s my opinion and that of my family\u2019s that the ATF realized they had messed up after they didn\u2019t find a single illegal weapon,\u201d Adamiak said. \u201cSo, they completely reinterpreted the statutes and implemented a new rule to spin the jury and get me convicted. They manufactured crime to convict me.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> The ATF\u2019s first indictment charged Adamiak with possessing 33 machineguns. There were no destructive devices mentioned. To counter, Adamiak and his attorneys hired former ATF senior official Dan O\u2019Kelly as a defense witness.<\/p>\n O\u2019Kelly joined the ATF as a Special Agent in 1988 after serving 10 years as a sworn police officer. He became a legend within the agency, including a stint as the lead instructor of Firearm Technology on staff at the ATF National Academy. O\u2019Kelly has taught internationally and co-wrote the program establishing the Certified Firearm Specialist for the ATF, while he was at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.<\/p>\n The prosecutors knew that O\u2019Kelly would make mincemeat of their charges, so they reindicted Adamiak, charging him with possession of one machinegun and four destructive devices.<\/p>\n \u201cThey knew we’d make them look like fools at trial with Dan’s testimony, so the AUSA filed motions to block his expert testimony saying, \u2018Any testimony about the definition of a frame or receiver of a machinegun would be both irrelevant and confusing to the jury.\u2019\u201d Adamiak explained.<\/p>\n His trial, he said, was \u201cliterally theatrical.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe AUSA absolutely twisted every fact, cherry-picked messages to completely change the whole narrative, and blatantly lied about everything to make me look bad,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n She claimed the down payment for Adamiak\u2019s house were profits of illegal gun trafficking. Adamiak bought his house a year before he started his hobby business using his Navy pay.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n She claimed Gun broker was the dark web.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n She used his military training against him.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n She claimed he stole parts from the military, despite the fact that he had detailed records for every single part.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n She claimed his honest business strategy of buying low and selling for profit was \u201cgreed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n She attempted to make Adamiak look like a neo-Nazi because he had his grandfather\u2019s WWII war trophies stored in his safe, some of which had German markings on them.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n Throughout the trial, the ATF claimed that their CI had warned Adamiak about the \u201cillegal weapons.\u201d Most worrisome was the replica Mark 19, which cannot even chamber a live round.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ATF even admitted in the report that it\u2019s a replica,\u201d Adamiak said. \u201cThe judge even brought this up in my sentencing order which indicates that she still thinks it\u2019s real. It’s fake!\u201d<\/p>\n All of the counts against him were almost laughable. None made any legal sense.<\/p>\n Counts 1 and 2 concerned the PPSh-41 receiver, which is not a firearm under current federal law.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Counts 3 and 4 concerned his M203 and M79, which are Title 1 firearms that were legally transferred by an FFL. Neither had a 40mm barrel affixed. Adamiak had 37mm barrels for both, which are legal and not subject to National Firearms Act (NFA) regulation.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Count 5 concerned two inert RPGs, which were missing all of the parts to make them functional and had holes drilled directly into their chambers.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n \u201cMy lawyers said that they were almost happy that I was charged with these RPGs because it was so ridiculous that it would damage the ATF’s creditability and made the jury question their logic,\u201d Adamiak said. \u201cUnfortunately, the ATF decided to take my inert RPGs to their lab, completely rebuild them with components off one of their own real RPGs and demonstrate that they would work by shooting a .30 caliber training round in a self-contained firing mechanism. They essentially inserted a bolt-action rifle into the tube that looks like a rocket, fired one shot, and then said it\u2019s a destructive device.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout the trial, the ATF\u2019s attorneys showed jurors pictures of Adamiak\u2019s extensive personal collection, including random parts, barrel shrouds and MAC-10 flats.<\/p>\n \u201cThey told the jury these were all machineguns,\u201d he said. \u201cThe worst was the M240. They displayed a photo of the ATF case agent holding the belt-fed M240 replica and testified that it was a machinegun, and also made filings saying the same thing, despite the fact that the ATF’s own report says it\u2019s a replica and not a firearm at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Rather than winning the trial as his attorneys had claimed they would do, Adamiak was found guilty and sentenced to 20-years imprisonment. His attorneys never even called Dan O\u2019Kelly to testify, whom Adamiak had paid thousands of dollars just to be there.<\/p>\n O\u2019Kelly was not impressed by the prosecution, which he believes was unfair.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was a prosecution by people who don\u2019t know enough about guns, who don\u2019t realize that what they\u2019re looking at doesn\u2019t satisfy the statutory definition,\u201d O\u2019Kelly told the Second Amendment Foundation. \u201cWhen ATF encounters some of these devices, they say a forced reset trigger is a machinegun or a brace is a shoulder stock when they\u2019re not. Then, armed with not enough information, they take it to a federal prosecutor, who takes them at face value. The next thing you know is someone is indicted, and their entire life is over.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> The ATF did not return calls or emails for this story. However, they could not wait to tell the world about Adamiak\u2019s 20-year sentence.<\/p>\n \u201cNORFOLK, Va. \u2014 A Virginia Beach man was sentenced yesterday to 20 years in prison for possessing and selling unregistered machineguns and possessing unregistered destructive devices,\u201d a press release sent out in June 2023 falsely claims.<\/p>\n \u201cAccording to court records and evidence presented at trial, between approximately October 2021 and April 2022, Patrick Tate Adamiak, 28, was obtaining illegal machine guns that were not registered, and he was selling these machine guns online. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) purchased eight machine guns from him through a confidential source. They then executed a search warrant at Adamiak\u2019s residence and recovered 25 additional unregistered firearms. A search warrant at his residence found that Adamiak was in possession of two grenade launchers and two antitank missile launchers. Adamiak is a Master at Arms in the U.S. Navy,\u201d the Justice Department press release states.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Thankfully, the Navy never believed any of these false allegations. They never prosecuted Adamiak. In fact, the Navy never even sent him a letter.<\/p>\n Rather than demoting him, they let him burn through his personal leave while in jail. Usually, once a sailor goes to jail, they\u2019re considered UA, but with Adamiak, things were different.<\/p>\n The Navy continued to pay him as an E-6 on the 1<\/span>st<\/sup> and 15<\/span>th<\/sup> of every month. Once he ran out of leave, he received a DD214 with an honorable discharge.<\/span><\/p>\n Unfortunately, Adamiak\u2019s mother died about a month after his arrest, according to his father, David Adamiak.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was terrible. What scumbags the ATF are,\u201d his father said. \u201cThey arrested him on my wife\u2019s birthday, and she died about a month later. They put her in the grave.\u201d<\/p>\n Said David Adamiak: \u201cI\u2019m at my wit\u2019s end. I can\u2019t focus. I can\u2019t believe this would happen to such a patriot. He\u2019s been around guns since he was very young. I taught him how to shoot, and it was all used against him in court. The ATF took this model Sten \u2013 it\u2019s just a Sten model. They took it back to their lab, but they couldn\u2019t even get it to fire, but they said now that\u2019s a machinegun. That was pretty much like their entire case.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n A <\/span>GiveSendGo account<\/a> has been established to help Adamiak raise funds for his legal battles. <\/span><\/p>\n He can be contacted at <\/span>FreedomforTate@gmail.com<\/a> or by mail at:<\/span><\/p>\n Patrick Tate Adamiak #95252-509<\/strong><\/p>\n Federal Correctional Institution Ft. Dix <\/strong><\/p>\n PO Box 2000, Joint Base MDL NJ, 08640<\/strong><\/p>\n The Second Amendment Foundation\u2019s Investigative Journalism Project wouldn\u2019t be possible without you. Click <\/span>here<\/a><\/strong> to make a tax-deductible donation to support pro-gun stories like this.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F518e97c8-02fd-48a1-9885-c0297dd1cffd_1100x619.jpeg\")
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