By Lee Williams
SAF Investigative Journalism Project
On the very same day Patrick “Tate” Adamiak arrived at the Western Tidewater Regional Jail in Suffolk, Virginia, two guards pepper-sprayed an inmate for little or no reason, rammed his head into a metal door, and then dragged him through the jail until his neck and hand were broken. The jail’s medical staff said the inmate was “unlikely to regain limb control.”
The two guards were later fired and charged with malicious wounding; a Class 3 felony in Virginia involving intentional injury with the intent to maim, disfigure, disable, or kill. They each face up to 20 years in prison and $100,000 in fines.
Even though he’s a federal inmate and his resentencing hearing was cancelled, Adamiak was never returned to a federal prison. He still remains inside the Western Tidewater Regional Jail since he first arrived there June 16.
“It’s not safe,” his father, Dave Adamiak, said Monday. “From what Tate has told me, whenever there’s an issue the guards don’t intervene. Someone could be laying on the ground for quite a while.”
Contact with his son is sketchy at best.
“I can’t get a hold of him. He has to call out. There is no way to communicate,” Dave Adamiak said. “Every few days he’ll call. It’s dangerous—not a safe place. He just tries to mind his own business and stay out of trouble, but there is always trouble carrying on. People are screaming all of the time. It’s a hellhole.”
Adamik’s father is still in legal limbo.
“Why haven’t they moved him? That’s a good question. His next resentencing hearing isn’t until the end of September,” Dave Adamiak said. “Maybe the judge is trying to make it worse for him. I am worried about him in there. It’s something you have to think about quite often—his safety.”
Adamiak, who at the time was an active-duty Navy E-6, was arrested and charged by the ATF during the height of the Biden Administration’s war on guns, gun owners, gun rights and the Second Amendment.
Adamiak had been accepted to attend BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training). Had the ATF left him alone, he would likely be leading a Navy SEAL platoon.
After ATF agents kicked down his doors, they found nothing illegal or even suspected of being illegal. As a result, the ATF brought in a specialist, ATF Firearm Enforcement Officer Jeffrey R. Bodell, who discombobulated the actual items that the agents had found—all of which are still sold legally online, most do not even require an ID—and turned them into machineguns and destructive devices.
Adamiak was charged with illegally possessing a machinegun for a toy STEN submachinegun found during the search warrant. He paid $75 for the non-firing Spanish replica—or toy—which was made by Denix and is still sold online. Bodell inserted a real STEN barrel and receiver, neither Bodell nor his assistant could make it fire more than one round at a time. Despite their hard work, the toy STEN would not even accept a real magazine. Still, Bodell officially ruled that the toy was a machinegun.
Adamiak was charged with illegally possessing two destructive devices, two inert RPGs that had holes drilled into their receivers and were stripped of internal parts. ATF’s “expert” added parts from real RPGs until they would fire a single subcaliber 7.62x39mm round. As a result, he classified the RPGs as destructive devices. The inert RPGs are still legally sold today without an FFL or any other paperwork.
Arenda L. Wright Allen is the federal judge who oversaw the trial and sentenced Adamiak to serve 20 years in prison—a sentence that even the new ATF Director, Robert Cekada, believes was far too long.
“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,” Cekada said in a previous interview.
Lawmakers concerned
Congresswoman Jen Kiggans along with Congressmen Eli Crane, Eric Burlison, Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S., Rob Bresnahan, Jr., and Daniel Webster recently sent a letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and U.S. Justice Department Pardon Attorney Edward J. Martin Jr., asking that Adamiak be freed from his 20-year prison sentence.
Cekada was also copied with the correspondence.
The letter was the idea of Rep. Eli Crane, who recently questioned Cekada during a live congressional hearing about Adamiak’s incarceration.
The six U.S. Representatives were very clear as to their intent:
“We, the undersigned Members of Congress, respectfully request that you work with President Donald Trump to give fair consideration to a commutation request for Patrick ‘Tate’ Adamiak. We believe that certain inconsistencies in the regulatory framework applied in his case as well as the broader enforcement environment at the time warrant careful review and consideration for executive clemency,” the lawmakers wrote.
Less time behind bars
Every Friday, ATF releases information about their current cases: arrests, pleas, sentences and more.
Even a modest look at these press releases shows how badly Adamiak—who had no prior criminal record—was treated. They show criminals who received much less time behind bars than the 20 years, or 240 months, Adamiak is currently serving.
Here are the latest examples that were released last week:
- Quentin Hall, 30, of Valdosta, Georgia with three prior felony convictions for drug distribution, was sentenced to serve 12 years in prison for armed drug distribution.
- Aquille Omar Johnson, 32, of Savannah, Georgia, was sentenced to 120 months in prison and a $1,200 fine followed by three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession with intent to distribute cocaine.
- Eric Lowe, 45, of Dublin, Georgia, was sentenced to 96 months in prison and a $1,500 fine followed by three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine.
- Mark Anthony Cavello, 52, of Dallas, Texas, was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison. He had previously pleaded guilty on May 30, 2024, to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute more than 50 grams of meth, distribution of more than 50 grams of meth, and money laundering.
- Kevin Krebs, 32, of Malvern, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to 37 months in prison and three years of supervised release by United States District Judge Mary Kay Costello for possessing unregistered explosive devices—specifically pipe bombs, and related materials, in a garage attached to the premises.
- Corey Adkins, 29, of Sharon, Pennsylvania, was sentenced in federal court to 84 months in prison, to be followed by six years of supervised release, on his conviction of drug trafficking and firearm crimes. Adkins engaged in armed cocaine trafficking from his Sharon residence, where Adkins’ girlfriend and a young child also resided and were present at the time. Adkins had been convicted twice for cocaine trafficking during the preceding eight years.
- Damian Barnett, 22, a felon residing in the District of Washington D.C., who was previously convicted of two attempted carjackings, was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 28 months in prison for illegally possessing a loaded unholstered pistol in a residential neighborhood.
- Henry Holloway, 34, of Tallulah, Louisiana, was sentenced to over five years in federal prison for possession with intent to distribute cocaine and possession of a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime.
- Terrance Long, 52, of Monroe, was sentenced to over eight years in federal prison for possession with intent to distribute controlled substances and possession of a firearm during a drug trafficking offense. When officers executed a search warrant at Long’s residence, investigators located a black pouch containing multiple individually wrapped bags of crack cocaine weighing approximately 15 grams and a loaded Taurus 9mm handgun.
- Tyrone Whittington, 41, of New Orleans, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after previously pleading guilty to two counts of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. According to court documents, Whittington was arrested by New Orleans Police Department officers on August 19, 2023, and by Louisiana State Police troopers on December 30, 2024. For each of those arrests, Whittington was in possession of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine that he intended to distribute, as well as two handguns that furthered those drug-trafficking crimes.
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