Patrick “Tate” Adamiak savors the peace and quiet of life outside of federal prison. He says that for almost five years, he lived with the constant noise, confusion, and uncertainty of prison while serving a 20-year sentence for violating the National Firearms Act.
On Sept. 3, President Donald Trump granted the Navy veteran executive clemency, releasing him from prison and restoring his constitutional rights.
“I’m having a conversation with you in peace and quiet, and there’s not a billion [inmates] screaming in the background, yelling at their loved ones on the phone. The fact that I can just sit here without being bothered is something that I value,” Adamiak told The Epoch Times.
Adamiak, his family, friends, attorneys, and others believed the U.S. Navy veteran was wrongly charged and convicted under the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF’s) zero-tolerance policy implemented during the Biden administration.
Trump agreed.
“President Trump stands for the Second Amendment and will not deny honorable veterans like Mr. Adamiak his constitutional rights,” a White House spokesperson stated to The Epoch Times in an email.
The spokesperson called Adamiak’s case an example of the weaponization of government and said his trial was “riddled with errors,” prompting the president to take the unusual step of granting executive clemency before his resentencing proceedings were complete.
Adamiak was convicted in 2022 on federal firearms charges and sentenced to 20 years. An appeals court later vacated one count and sent the case back to the trial court for resentencing. The Supreme Court declined to review his remaining challenges in May 2026, but the resentencing had yet to occur when Trump pardoned him.
During the Biden administration, the ATF adopted a zero-tolerance policy, dropping the legal hammer on federal firearms license holders for even minor paperwork violations.
Adamiak’s legal odyssey began with a confidential tip to the ATF in October 2021.
At that time, he was in the U.S. Navy hoping to become a SEAL. He owned two homes, was in a serious relationship, and collected military history artifacts.
According to court records, an informant told ATF special agent William Hairston Jr., that Adamiak possessed prohibited items. Adamiak didn’t know the ATF had set its sights on him until agents raided both of his properties and seized much of his collection on April 7, 2022.
The ATF reported seizing illegal firearms, including machine guns, and destructive devices during the raid. Adamiak has steadfastly denied having any illegal items in his collection.
Federal law defines a firearm as “(A) any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive; (B) the frame or receiver of any such weapon; (C) any firearm muffler or firearm silencer; or (D) any destructive device.”
Adamiak said he didn’t want to go to the trouble of maintaining a federal firearms license. So he only collected non-firing replica weapons.
Special agent Daniel Beasley described how he altered Adamiak’s non-firing replica STEN machine gun to fire live ammunition, in a report in the court file.
The STEN is a World War II-era submachine gun popular with history buffs because of its use by the Allies against Nazi Germany. Adamiak’s replica had no firing mechanism, no working barrel, and no ability to accept a magazine.
Beasley had to install a firing mechanism and a real STEN barrel and then wrap part of the barrel in electrical tape to fire a single round, he stated in his report.
Calum Welch, one of Adamiak’s lawyers, said the ATF appeared to have investigated crimes that Adamiak could have committed.
“That just attributes conduct he didn’t commit, intent he didn’t have, and items he didn’t possess,” Welch told The Epoch Times.
Adamiak was convicted on Oct. 21, 2022. Over the next four-plus years, as his case ground on through the legal system, the Navy veteran spent most of his time in the Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution in New Jersey. The federal prison is part of the Army base first opened in 1917.
He admits to being apprehensive as he walked into the medium-security prison on his first day. He had never been in trouble with the law, and his impressions of prison were formed mostly by television and movies.
He said actual violence was not as much of a factor in prison life. The threat, however, is ever-present, he said, like an irritating buzz under the constant cacophony of hundreds of men with time on their hands and little hope for their futures.
Adamiak believes his military training and the ability to mind his own business kept him from having to fight, though there were close calls—like the night he was awakened by a drug-addled prisoner trying to steal the snacks Adamiak had bought from the prison commissary. As he confronted him, the would-be snack thief pulled an improvised knife, commonly called a shank.
Adamiak said the de-escalation training he received in the Navy, combined with the fact that the man considered him a friend, enabled him to talk the man out of his room and into the hallway, where he was able to calm him further.
“We had a conversation, and I tried to just kind of put in perspective, like, ‘You’re gonna stab somebody over a bag of chips, really?’” Adamiak said.
Eventually, the man put his knife away, and Adamiak shared a bag of chips with him as a gesture of goodwill.
Adamiak said the truly torturous part of prison began the day he was arrested. It wasn’t just the fear of violence, or the thought of losing property, money, and relationships. It was the combination of all those factors, and more, that left him feeling as if his world had stopped while everyone else moved ahead.
On April 7, 2022, he went from having several irons in the fire to being solely focused on one goal: regaining his freedom.
Adamiak used the time to study the law and became a paralegal. He also worked as a steamfitter, eventually working his way up to supervising a crew, he said. But his main objective was to find someone in authority to hear his case.
Adamiak said that, fortunately, he was not alone.
Adamiak’s father, David, said he has always been proud of his son and enjoyed talking about him. So when Tate wound up in prison, his father took every opportunity to present his son’s case to anyone who would listen.
David Adamiak said this went beyond bragging about a child’s accomplishments. He made telling his son’s story his life’s work.
“I have a lot of things to do in my life, but I have put them all on the back burner for four years, and things are starting to really show, but my biggest goal in my life now is to get paid out his freedom,” David Adamiak told The Epoch Times last June.
Lee Williams is a bear of a man with a booming voice, friendly demeanor, and strong belief in the individual right to keep and bear arms.
He heads up the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project. The former police officer and reporter was one of Adamiak’s most vocal champions. After reviewing the court records and talking with people familiar with the case, he took up Adamiak’s cause.
In addition to writing 60 articles, Williams spoke to groups whenever he was given the chance. He also reached out to politicians and other gun rights organizations to get on board, and many did. Williams said he felt an obligation to speak out for someone he felt had been unfairly imprisoned.
He had an especially harsh critique of the ATF’s investigation.
“After I read the absolute lies—there is no other word that suffices—that the ATF said about what they found in his home, I could not stop. He was an innocent man behind bars,” Williams stated in an email to The Epoch Times.
“Now that he’s a free man, I could not be happier.”
Adamiak’s case also got the attention of six Republican members of Congress.
On May 29, Reps. Eli Crane and Paul Gosar of Arizona, Eric Burlison of Missouri, Daniel Webster of Florida, Jen Kiggans of Virginia, and Rob Bresnahan Jr. of Pennsylvania sent a letter to ATF Director Robert Cekada, U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, and Edward Martin Jr., pardon attorney for the Department of Justice.
The representatives asked the officials to encourage Trump to review Adamiak’s case. The letter stated that Adamiak was convicted only after the Biden administration “implemented a series of expanded and draconian regulatory approaches to firearm regulation.”
They pointed out that Adamiak’s case involved “no violence, victims, or criminal misuse of any weapon.” In addition, the letter states that Adamiak had never been in trouble, had an exemplary military record, and had received an honorable discharge from the U.S. Navy despite his felony conviction.
“Given the nonviolent nature of the case, the absence of victims, the characteristics of the items involved, and the shifting regulatory landscape, we believe that his circumstances merit thoughtful review and if appropriate a commutation of his sentence,” the letter reads.
In June, Cekada, then the newly appointed director of the ATF, confirmed during a congressional hearing that he had also received a letter from Adamiak. He said the veteran’s case was under review.
At that time, the U.S. Supreme Court had refused to hear the case, his appeal had been denied, and he was waiting for a resentencing hearing. Adamiak said he was not sure how much hope he could hang onto.
“My only chance of my life being restored anytime in the near future would be pretty much a presidential pardon at this point,” Adamiak told The Epoch Times last June. “That’s my last Hail Mary.”
Then came Sept. 3, 2026.
On that day, he was in the Western Tidewater Regional Jail in Suffolk, Virginia, waiting for a resentencing hearing that had been delayed from June. He recalled that it was about lunchtime and he was watching the news on television when a lieutenant from the sheriff’s office told him they needed to talk.
“She said, ‘Hey, the Bureau of Prisons just called. They need to know what your release address is, a point of contact, like a sponsor, their phone number, and like what your immediate plans would be,’” Adamiak said.
The deputy asked him if he was going to be released soon. He assured her that he had the bulk of a 20-year sentence to serve. But he couldn’t imagine any other reason they would need that information. Still, the uncertainty of the legal system and prison life tempered his emotions.
“I try to manage expectations. I don’t like getting everybody’s hopes up, but I did,” he said.
He messaged his brother, Tucker, and his dad to let them know what happened and ask them to look into it. A little later, he got a message from Tucker that changed his life. He said the sensation he got from reading that message was like nothing he’s ever experienced.
“He’s like, ‘Tate, it happened. The White House just called your attorney, and I’m on the way. I’m coming to get you,’” Adamiak said. “So, basically, I’m like in shock, and it was weird.”
Adamiak says that since that day, he’s been working on rebuilding his life. It’s been less than one month, but he has already contacted the Navy about possibly salvaging his military career.
He wants to get as close as he can to what his life was like on April 6, 2022, the day before his arrest. But he’s not the same man he was on that day.
Adamiak said that in his case, government experts used their credentials to convince jurors that non-functioning replica firearms, inert military objects, and items that don’t meet the legal definition of a firearm were actually that.
He believes prosecutors are focused on winning, regardless of whether justice is served.
“I would say I’ve completely lost faith in the justice system and the legal system, and I don’t think it’s truly about justice,” Adamiak said.
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