Former US Navy sailor Patrick "Tate" Adamiak has been railroaded by the nation he swore to serve. Lee Williams outlined it perfectly in his reporting, and I've covered that reporting here as well.
There's nothing about what happened to Adamiak that passes the sniff test when you actually look at the evidence.
The man deserves to be free, and a pardon is the fastest way to get there, but there's another option, and one that will hopefully work out even better in the long run for the would-be Navy SEAL.
As Williams reported this morning, Adamiak's got an appeal hearing coming up in just 10 days.
Matthew Larosiere, an appellate attorney for Patrick “Tate” Adamiak, will argue his client’s innocence Sept. 12th in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which is in Richmond, Virginia. However, Adamiak won’t be there. He will remain behind bars in a federal prison in New Jersey. It is not yet clear how the courtroom testimony will be made available to the public.
What happens next is anyone’s guess.
The appellate court usually renders a decision within 30 to 60 days after hearing the oral arguments.
“We’ll get an opinion, either reversing or affirming. They could say there are no changes, that the District Court did everything right,” Adamiak said from his New Jersey federal prison. “They could send me back for a whole new trial. They could affirm some of the five counts and reverse others. I could be resentenced for just the remaining counts. Hypothetically, say we defeat the missile launcher charges, we will go back for resentencing on lesser charges.”
Adamiak, who is now 31, and has served roughly three years of his 20-year federal sentence, wants complete exoneration since he believes he did nothing wrong.
“Obviously, my whole goal is to defeat them all—all of the charges—but even if I don’t beat them all and they release me, even if I go home, I will still pursue a pardon, just so I can have all of my rights back,” he said.
Almost all of the “weapons” that led to Adamiak’s 20-year prison sentence are not even weapons. They can still be purchased online without identification, since they are gun parts, not guns. The prosecution has never fully addressed this.
And the actual weapons recovered? They were semi-automatic weapons that are still on the used market and lawfully owned by thousands of other people.
He shouldn't be in prison.
What happened was an absolute travesty of justice. As numerous real criminals are getting back out on the streets in no time at all, Adamiak is in the midst of serving 20 years for not just crimes he didn't commit, but that no one committed. They're not crimes at all.
I sincerely hope the appeals court recognizes what happened and clears things up. I hope the ATF gets smacked down in the decision, because what happened is absolutely insane.
No one should be punished for parts that aren't illegal. Even if you think that there should be some restrictions on guns, you should have a problem with someone being punished for something that isn't a crime.
This is police-state nonsense. For all the rhetoric claiming we're living in one because ICE is doing its job, it's what happened to Adamiak that reeks of the police state.
And none of those so-called activists are saying a thing. I wonder why?
Editor's note: The ATF has a long and storied history of abusing the civil liberties of Americans and depriving them not just of their freedom, but their lives.
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