by Lee Williams
It’s not just Patrick “Tate” Adamiak or his friends and family, or a reporter, who believe Joe Biden’s ATF was far too harsh in their treatment of the young active-duty sailor, who is starting the fourth year of his 20-year federal prison sentence even though he broke no law and did nothing wrong.
ATF Director Robert Cekada, who was handpicked by President Donald J. Trump, does not believe Adamiak was treated fairly by either Biden’s ATF or the Justice Department.
Instead, Cekada believes Adamiak was massively over-sentenced.
“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,” he told me last week.
He could not be more correct. His own agency proves it every single week.
Cekada’s ATF regularly updates the public about its ongoing investigations. Every Friday, ATF officials publicize who’s been arrested by their agents and who’s been convicted, as well as the length of the criminal sentences the bad guys receive.
Even a modest look at these press releases reveals how badly Adamiak was treated. They show criminals—real criminals—who received far less time behind bars than the 240 months Adamiak is currently serving.
Here are some examples that were released last Friday:
A subway arsonist in New York was sentenced to 66 Months in prison for lighting a sleeping man on fire.
A Mexican national was sentenced to 48 months in prison for dealing methamphetamine while illegally possessing a loaded handgun and shotgun.
A Las Vegas man who had been previously convicted of convicted of possession of controlled substance for sale, unlawful possession or use of tear gas, felon in possession of a firearm, possession of a controlled substance while armed with a firearm and transportation, furnishing or sale of controlled substances in Los Angeles County, was sentenced to 80 months in prison after he was caught with an unserialized, privately made AR-15-pattern pistol.
A 32-year-old Minneapolis man was sentenced to 170 months in federal prison for possession of a firearm as a felon and for discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, namely, an armed carjacking in St. Paul, Minnesota. At the time of the offenses, he was serving a term of federal supervised release for a 2019 federal conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm, for which he had been previously sentenced to 90 months imprisonment. He brandished a firearm, carjacked an Uber driver, chased the victim on foot, and fired a round at him as the victim ran for his life, before driving away in the carjacked vehicle.
A 39-year-old woman was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison for her role in trafficking methamphetamine to the IPO Blood criminal street gang operating in the Spokane area.
An Alexandria man was sentenced to 48 months in prison for possessing a machinegun. He was driving on the right shoulder of Interstate 95 at more than 100 miles per hour past heavy traffic in Fairfax County when he passed a Virginia State Trooper. The trooper activated his emergency equipment and pursued. The suspect crashed into a parked vehicle on the right shoulder and then struck two additional vehicles on the roadway. He then fled on foot and unsuccessfully attempted to enter two vehicles. He then tried to jump through the open passenger side window of a third vehicle, but the driver accelerated and the defendant was injured and apprehended. In 2022, the same defendant shot a victim at the Potomac Mills Mall and fled. He later pled guilty to unlawful discharge of a firearm within an occupied building, felony destruction of property, and carrying a concealed weapon and was sentenced to time served and an 11-year suspended sentence.
An Oregon man was sentenced to 120 months in federal prison for possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and for illegally possessing a firearm as a felon.
A California, man was sentenced to 220 months in prison for distributing, attempting to distribute, and conspiring to distribute methamphetamine and fentanyl. He sold and distributed over 35.5 pounds of methamphetamine and 11.5 pounds of fentanyl and fentanyl-laced pills from his base of operations in California to a Hawaii purchaser, who was an undercover law enforcement employee. He sold the drugs to the undercover for approximately $118,050 and shipped them from California to Hawaii, concealing the drug shipments in canned goods labeled as hominy and condensed milk. He told the undercover he had a supplier in Mexico, traveled to Mexico during the timeframe of the conspiracy, and had access to other drugs, including oxycodone cocaine, and ketamine.
An Anchorage man was sentenced to 56 months in prison for trafficking firearms and illegally possessing a machine gun. According to court documents, he began communicating via text message with an individual to arrange the sale of firearms. On Jan. 31, 2025, he met with the individual and sold them two machine gun conversion devices for $1,000. He later sold the same individual 10 other conversion devices and a pistol with a silencer. Two days later, he sold the individual a 3D printed machinegun with a conversion device and ammunition for $700.
A Las Vegas man was sentenced to 30 months in prison for possessing 35 stolen firearms—including a semiautomatic rifle, semiautomatic pistols, and a long rifle—inside his residence in North Las Vegas. Many of the stolen firearms had price tags and descriptions attached to them from a licensed firearms dealer located in Southern California. He further admitted that he and his co-defendants exchanged a 5.56x45mm semiautomatic rifle and cash for two of the stolen pistols.
A Montana man who was caught selling methamphetamine while using a handgun for protection was sentenced to 180 months in prison. Officers found he was carrying a .22 caliber handgun, two bags containing 50 fentanyl pills, and a bag of meth. He told deputies he had more meth in the car. Deputies found three bags of meth, 17 zip lock bags, a digital scale, four syringes, and five cell phones.
A North Carolina gang member with prior convictions for selling heroin (2012), conspiracy to commit robbery with a dangerous weapon (2015) and assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill as a habitual felon (2019) was sentenced to 180 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to two counts of distribution of fentanyl.
Takeaways
Lighting a sleeping man on fire, illegally selling meth while armed, illegally selling meth to gang members, illegally possessing and selling machineguns, illegally selling stolen firearms, and shooting at a fleeing Uber driver are all real crimes, not the made-up junk Adamiak faced. But Adamiak was sentenced to far more time behind bars than any of these real criminals, most of whom had previous felony convictions.
As Cekada said, “the sentence Mr. Adamiak received is excessive.”
It certainly is, but I tend to describe it with words that are not fit to print.
One thing is certain, the judge who sentenced Adamiak to two decades behind bars doesn’t want to hear anything about the case or her decision.
Last week, Senior United States District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen cancelled Adamiak’s resentencing hearing. She also barred his attorneys from addressing any issues they have with his sentence, the ATF investigation or the case itself.
Adamiak was not available for comment. He has been moved so frequently lately we’re not even sure where he is at.
We will let you know as soon as this changes, and what he will face next.
