President Donald Trump pardoned former sailor Patrick Tate Adamiak, who was serving a 20 year prison sentence for possessing and selling unregistered machine guns. Trump granted the pardon on Sept. 3 alongside pardons for 22 other people.
Adamiak was convicted by a federal jury in 2022. Gun rights organizations had advocated for him for years, arguing that the prosecution and resulting conviction were wrongful.
The Second Amendment Foundation, also known as SAF, was among the groups challenging the case against Adamiak. Lee Williams, who leads a journalism project funded by SAF, has written more than 60 articles about the former sailor’s prosecution.
Williams argued that Adamiak was “wrongfully” convicted. He also said Adamiak “never committed a single crime” because he “never sold a single real firearm.”
Williams accused federal agents of personally targeting Adamiak and lying under oath about the case. Those allegations formed part of the broader advocacy campaign that preceded Trump’s decision to grant clemency.
The jury nevertheless convicted Adamiak, and an appellate court later rejected most of his challenges to that conviction. A presidential pardon does not erase the underlying conviction or remove the conviction from a person’s criminal record.
According to SAF’s reporting, Adamiak enlisted in the Navy in 2012. At the time of his arrest, he was an E-6 Master-at-Arms and ranked among the top 500 sellers on Gun Broker.
Court documents state that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives began investigating Adamiak in 2021. The investigation started after the agency received information from a confidential informant.
Prosecutors contended that Adamiak made illegal sales to the confidential informant between October 2021 and April 2022. They said those transactions involved seven machine gun receivers and a PPSh machine gun.
ATF agents later executed a search warrant at Adamiak’s home. According to prosecutors, agents recovered 25 additional unregistered machine guns, two grenade launchers and two anti-tank missile launchers during that search.
Prosecutors also said investigators found invoices and schematics detailing Adamiak’s illegal manufacturing of machine gun receivers. Agents additionally recovered Adamiak’s phone, which prosecutors said contained messages involving sources for machine gun parts.
Court documents identified one of those alleged sources as another sailor. That sailor allegedly made straw purchases of gun parts for Adamiak and also sold him items stolen from the Navy.
The prosecution’s evidence produced the 2022 federal jury conviction and Adamiak’s 20 year sentence. His supporters, however, continued arguing that the items at issue did not justify the government’s case against him.
That campaign included Williams’ extensive coverage through the SAF funded journalism project. His reporting repeatedly disputed the government’s characterization of the weapons and Adamiak’s conduct.
Trump’s pardon provides Adamiak relief from the punishment attached to his federal conviction, but it does not overturn the jury’s verdict. The distinction remains important because the pardon leaves the conviction and criminal record in place.
According to SAF, Adamiak plans to continue pursuing legal action seeking to overturn his conviction. The presidential pardon therefore resolves his punishment while leaving his effort to challenge the underlying verdict unfinished.
