By Lee Williams
SAF Investigative Journalism Project
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives under President Donald J. Trump is now focused solely on arresting violent criminals—armed bad guys—not turning law-abiding gun owners into felons. That promise came from President Trump’s new ATF Director, Robert Cekada.
Unlike those Joe Biden picked to run the ATF, Cekada is not an outsider. He is a 20-year ATF veteran, and before that worked at the NYPD and two other local law enforcement agencies. His selection received strong backing from the country’s firearm community, which still hopes he can de-weaponize the powerful agency and stop targeting good folks who have done nothing wrong.
While Cekada’s new goal is certainly laudable, the ATF still faces a massive problem: What to do about the law-abiding gun owners who were falsely targeted and imprisoned by Joe Biden’s ATF, like Patrick “Tate” Adamiak.
Adamiak was a gun collector who only sold legal gun parts. He had no previous criminal history until a paid ATF informant—who was facing his own felony charges—falsely reported that Adamiak had a Mk-19 grenade launcher. The informant’s lies led to a search warrant and ridiculous charges.
Adamiak’s legal dispute centers on whether the ATF falsely classified replicas, inert training devices, display artifacts and unregulated gun parts as firearms under federal law.
Adamiak has already served more than three years of his 20-year federal prison sentence, even though he did nothing wrong. We have published more than 30 stories describing his innocence and how he was framed by the ATF after they found nothing illegal in his home.
Let’s return to Director Cekada. What is he supposed to do about Adamiak and the others whom his agency falsely charged and illegally imprisoned? How can he help these innocent Americans who were targeted by Joe Biden’s out-of-control ATF?
Here are some suggestions. Each one falls within Director Cekada’s authority. Each one could help Adamiak obtain some relief.
- Order a new technical review of the evidence seized during the search warrant of Adamiak’s home. The reports would clearly show whether the evidence met the statutory definitions that prosecutors relied upon to get their conviction.
- Meet with prosecutors and acknowledge that this case did not properly use ATF technical expertise. In fact, ATF’s technical expert may have lied under oath about the evidence he examined.
- Send a letter to the Department of Justice regarding the prosecution, which outlines ATF’s concerns about how the government’s evidence may have been fabricated by ATF’s own staffers.
- Endorse Adamiak’s bid for a pardon because of the false evidence presented during his trial.
- Send a letter to Adamiak’s sentencing court explaining how the methods used by the prosecution were not consistent with ATF’s enforcement practices.
- Send a letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Department of Justice leadership agreeing to support Adamiak’s bid for relief, emphasizing that while the issues arose under the previous ATF leadership, the current ATF leadership strongly supports correcting them.
It is definitely time for ATF new leadership to take responsibility for Adamiak’s false arrest, fictitious prosecution and undeserved incarceration. If the ATF ever wants to become a respected federal law enforcement agency, they need to admit and correct their previous mistakes. They simply can no longer be ignored. ATF’s current leadership needs to do the right thing.
Patrick “Tate” Adamiak did nothing wrong. Each second he spends behind bars is undeserved and reflects poorly upon those who put him there, which was the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, regardless of who was in charge.
It is now time to see what, if anything, ATF current leadership is willing to do about it.
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