By Lee Williams
SAF Investigative Journalism Project
The first time ATF Firearm Enforcement Officer Jeffrey Bodell ever testified in a courtroom was October 20, 2022, during the criminal trial of Patrick “Tate” Adamiak.
At that time, Bodell had very little experience and had worked for the ATF for only two years.
“I attended Pennsylvania Gunsmith School where I, upon graduation I worked for a small gunsmithing shop for good, a year and a half, conducting general gunsmithing,” Bodell testified during the trial. “After that I worked for a semi-custom production bolt-action rifle company making rifles for a year and a half. And then after that I had my own gunsmithing business based out of my house.”
His lack of experience didn’t stop Bodell from making false claims about toys, air rifles and firearm parts ATF agents found during a search of Adamiak’s home, especially a toy Denix British STEN MK II non-firing replica machinegun.
“I examined the large black item in the photograph there. It’s marketed as a replica submachine gun, specifically a Sten Mk II, which was a World War II British submachine gun. My examination of that, I found it to be both a firearm under the Gun Control Act and a machine gun,” Bodell told the jury.
His statement forced Adamiak’s attorney to quickly object, since the STEN and other items Bodell testified about were not included in the evidence that was admitted to the trial.
The prosecutor quickly told the judge that Bodell was a firearm “expert” and that he had the “background and expertise to talk about it.”
The judge allowed Bodell’s testimony to continue about the STEN and other items, which were not part of the case.
“It’s not a real Sten Mk II submachine gun. But I was able to fire a live cartridge out of it in approximately 15 minutes utilizing a machine gun barrel and a machine gun bolt, and because of that, it’s readily converted to be able to expel a projectile by action of an explosive and therefore it is a firearm.” Bodell said while under oath.
He also testified that an air rifle was also a machinegun, as were four MAC-type pistols, which only fired semi-automatically from an open bolt.
“They did not shoot automatically and they weren’t converted to shoot automatically, but they are machine guns because they’re designed to shoot automatically,” Bodell told the jury.
Bodell’s testimony about the toys and legal weapons—though completely wrong—helped prosecutors secure their conviction, which led to a 20-year federal prison sentence. Adamiak is starting his fourth year behind bars.
Cekada
On Thursday, I asked ATF Director Robert Cekada a simple question: Is a Denix British STEN MK II non-firing replica a toy or a machinegun?
“It wasn’t charged as a machinegun, and I’m not looking at it as a machinegun, for sure,” Cekada said. “I know it wasn’t indicted as a machinegun. It wasn’t one of the indicted items.”
I reminded Director Cekada that one of his ATF experts told the jury while under oath that it was a machinegun, as he did other items that were never charged and were never part of the government’s evidence.
“I think there’s a lot to be discussed on that,” he replied. “The U.S. Attorney’s office didn’t proceed with that charge.”
Cekada mentioned the other evidence collected during the search warrant of Adamiak’s home: RPGs, machinegun parts and M79 and M203 grenade launchers, which he said were not demilled.
“The RPGs—there was a veiled attempt to demil those. You could argue that either way,” he said. “The M79 and M203 carry the most sentencing enhancements and put him in jeopardy.”
Cekada said Adamiak was massively over-sentenced.
“On the facts of this case, the sentence, Mr. Adamiak received is excessive. Mr. Adamiak had no prior criminal history. He dealt with these weapons as curios. We have no evidence that he intended to use the weapons unlawfully or that he was part of a criminal organization. The extremely high sentencing guidelines likely reflect the paradigmatic cases of individuals possessing destructive devices, such as grenade, launchers, and normally involve terrorism or organized criminal activity. No such conduct was present here. For me, unlawful possession of national firearms act items sentences approximately in the three-to-five-year range are common,” he said.
Takeaways
This is not the first time Cekada has commented about his agents or their ability to follow the law.
“There is ambiguity in the law, and I think it’s important for people to be able to follow the law, to understand to law, and when federal agents don’t understand the law themselves, that leaves all of us at risk, and there shouldn’t be any room there,” Cekada told Congressman Eli Crane during a recent hearing.
Adamiak said during an interview last month that he strongly agreed with Cekada’s comments, which was no surprise.
Most people do.
For this story, Adamiak was unavailable for comment.
He is being moved by the Federal Bureau of Prisons in preparation for a court hearing.
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