By Lee Williams
SAF Investigative Journalism Project
Jeffrey R. Bodell—the ATF Firearms Enforcement Officer responsible for imprisoning Patrick “Tate” Adamiak for 20 years by claiming that a toy and legal semi-automatic pistols were machineguns and that two inert RPGs were actually destructive devices—is still working for the ATF and will soon testify under oath about firearms seized in other criminal cases.
Bodell admitted during testimony in June that he has spent the last year and a half “operating a federal testing lab that 3D prints firearms.” This is about the same time that coverage of Adamiak’s case began to focus on Bodell and his testimony.
Now, Bodell is set to resume his duties as a Firearms Enforcement Officer by testifying about the actual weapons recovered during yet another ATF investigation, according to a source who did not want their name used for this story.
ATF Director Robert Cekada declined to comment about Bodell.
“It’s a personnel matter that I am not allowed to discuss,” Cekada said Wednesday.
Bodell’s previous testimony
Adamiak was arrested and charged by the ATF during the height of the Biden Administration’s war on gun rights and the Second Amendment.
Adamiak, who is now 31, was just a 28-year-old E-6 in the U.S. Navy prior to his arrest. He enjoyed firearms and ran a private website that sold gun parts—not guns. He was always extremely careful about what he sold. After all, he had to protect his naval career, which was doing extremely well.
After ATF agents kicked down his doors, they found nothing illegal or even suspected of being illegal. As a result, the ATF brought in Bodell who took 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, even though they were, and are, completely legal.
As the case against him moved forward, Adamiak and his attorneys were unprepared for Bodell or his deceptions, which have become almost legendary.
Adamiak’s trial was the first time Bodell had ever testified under oath, and what he said still raises questions.
Bodell inserted a real STEN action and a real STEN barrel into Adamiak’s toy submachinegun and got it to fire one round, even though the toy’s receiver wouldn’t accept a real STEN magazine. Bodell actually classified the toy, which are very popular, as a 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.
Bodell fired five of Adamiak’s very expensive and extremely collectible legal semi-auto handguns, which fire from an open bolt. All the ATF technician could achieve was semi-auto fire, but he still classified all five highly sought after firearms as machineguns.
“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 ruled that several receivers that had been cut in half were actually machineguns. The same parts are still legally sold online and do not require an FFL or any paperwork.
The worst thing Bodell told the court were his misconceptions about two inert RPGs, which Adamiak bought years earlier at an outdoor fair in California.
Bodell took the inert rocket launchers to the ATF’s lab and added missing fire-control components including a firing pin from a functional RPG from the ATF’s collection. Bodell also added a sub-caliber training device that resembles a warhead, which can fire 7.62x39mm rounds on its own without even loading it into an RPG.
When the subcaliber components fired a live round, Bodell classified the RPGs as rocket launchers.
“He fired a 7.62x39mm rifle cartridge through it utilizing the sub-caliber training device, which is a standalone rifle that can be fired independently on its own,” Adamiak said in a previous story.
During Adamiak’s sentencing hearing, Bodell claimed that 977 pieces of flat sheet metal were machineguns, but the judge threw out these claims. The additional 10 years prosecutors wanted for the flats were not added to Adamiak’s 20-year sentence. or Adamiak would have received 30 years behind bars instead of 20 years.
All of what Bodell insisted were illegal items are still sold legally online: Inert RPGs, the toy STEN, submachinegun receivers and especially open-bolt semi-autos. The RPGs, toy STEN and submachinegun receivers don’t require any paperwork to purchase.
Takeaways
Adamiak has been in federal custody longer under President Trump than under Biden. Were it not for the claims Bodell made under oath, Adamiak would likely be a free man.
Given Bodell’s record, it raises questions about why ATF would allow him to become involved in yet another trial—or any future trial.
Adamiak has been held in a Virginia county jail since June 16 and was not available for comment for this story.
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