By Lee Williams
SAF Investigative Journalism Project
Attorney Matthew Larosiere has experience defending those accused of violating nonsensical gun laws and is known as a fighter within the country’s tight Second Amendment legal community.
Larosiere understands exactly what Patrick “Tate” Adamiak is facing legally, but he’s never seen anything like it.
“There are three categories of charges, and each one is more insane than the last one,” Larosiere said Monday. “What Tate’s case shows you is that it doesn’t matter what you have, they can still charge you.”
Adamiak is about to start the third year of his 20-year federal prison sentence. However, based on the appeal Larosiere wrote and argued in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit last month, the appellate court found that the trial court had violated the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Adamiak had been sentenced for both possessing and receiving an unregistered firearm and then for possessing of the same firearm under a different statute, the court said in its decision.
“That would be the same as charging someone with murder and manslaughter for one death,” Larosiere said.
Adamiak’s 20-year sentence was also a concern.
“The strangest thing is that the government argued before the Fourth Circuit that his sentence shouldn’t change at all, because they were so unfamiliar with the case,” Larosiere said. “The only reason he got 20 years was because the same crime was 10 years and 10 years consecutive. Everything else was concurrent, which made no sense.
“The judge was 100-percent buying everything the state was selling,” he said.
As a result, Adamiak will now receive a new sentencing hearing, which could cut his time spent behind bars by at least 10 years.
“But we’re going to try to argue away from inclusion of all of these guns,” he said. “At a new hearing, we should at least be able to try. All of the items they calculated were non-NFA firearms. I don’t understand how totally legal guns were calculated. We do get to argue that again.”
Larosiere, too, took issue with the government’s press releases about the Adamiak case, which falsely alleged the 31-year-old active-duty sailor was illegally selling rocket launchers and machineguns.
Instead, and to add clarity, Larosiere has divided the charges into three categories: Cut-up parts, RPGs and 40mm parts. Most importantly, none of the categories should have led to criminal charges.
- Cut-up parts: “Before 2003, ATF would give you a permit to import exactly what he had, for unrestricted commercial sale in the United States. That’s why you find them on GunBroker. In order to grant a permit, the ATF would say ‘We’d like you to cut it up this way.’ After 2003, the ATF started asking for torches to be used. That was all of the testimony saying the PPSh-41 parts were a machinegun, while referencing ATF directives to licensed importers to import things into the country, which Adamiak never did,” he said. “These are perfectly legal to sell, even after the ATF changed their minds without telling anyone.”
- RPG’s: “If you see an RPG hanging on the wall of a VFW or a pawn shop, you know they don’t work. Again, you could import them into the country as long as they were deactivated. At some point during the last 20 years the ATF decided they want you to drill a hole of a certain size. It was an internal policy decision of the ATF that only ever mattered to licensed importers. If it mattered to everyone else the VFW with an RPG on the wall, would have a destructive device and be committing felonies,” Larosiere said. “Tate’s RPGs were completely deactivated. They didn’t even have fire controls. He even went through TSA after he bought them in California and flew home.”
- 40mm parts: “Tate had an M-79 and an M-203 that were assembled into non-working display items. That’s 100-percent legal. He bought them from a gun store and even completed a Form 4473. You can buy an M203 receiver and put a 37mm or blank barrel on it. If you assemble it as a 40mm grenade launcher, you have to pay taxes on it. On the other side of his property, they found manufactured 40mm barrels. I argued this and they ignored it,” he said. “This would be the same as the ATF taking someone with an AR pistol and an AR rifle, swapping the parts and then charging them with an unregistered SBR.”
The appellate court took no action about the false evidence that was presented by ATF Firearms Enforcement Officer Jeffrey Bodell.
Bodell is a former gun dealer who went to work for the ATF for reasons unknown. His official report and testimony were thick with false and misleading claims, Adamiak, Larosiere and many others have said.
Bodell actually turned toys into firearms, legal RPGs into destructive devices and 100% legal semi-autos into machineguns. All of what Bodell insisted were illegal items are still sold legally online: Inert RPGs, toy STENs, submachinegun receivers and especially open-bolt semi-autos.
During the new resentencing hearing, Larosiere may have the opportunity to present additional evidence, even about Bodell’s testimony. However, he must argue before the same judge.
“At his sentencing, he hadn’t been discharged from the Navy yet. The judge said she was sure Tate’s dishonorable discharge was coming,” Larosiere said.
Evidently, the U.S. Navy thought different. Adamiak was allowed to serve out his enlistment behind bars, and the Navy gave him an honorable discharge.
“He even gets free college,” Larosiere said.
Asked why he took Adamiak’s case, Larosiere said: “I have a law practice in Florida. I decided the best way for me to do the best work I can, was by bringing the cases I want to bring.”
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