“What’s next?” Adamiak asked. “AR-15s? Where is the justice in this?”
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by Matthew Larosiere, who said this is the first time an American has been criminally charged with violating the National Firearms Act for owning non-NFA guns and gun parts.
Changing charges
Adamiak was originally charged with an 11-count indictment. One count was for selling firearms without a license. The next 10 counts were for possession of 34 unregistered machineguns.
“This included eight parts that I sold to the Confidential Informant, which the ATF is misrepresenting as machinegun receivers, and 25 items seized from my home that were also falsely classified as machineguns,” Adamiak said this week.
The problem with these charges is that Adamiak never owned any machineguns—not a single one—so he could never have sold any.
The lead prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Victoria Liu, immediately tried to pressure Adamiak into taking a plea deal for the “illegal” items found in his home.
Adamiak refused the deal and warned the prosecutor that former ATF senior official Danial G. O’Kelly was ready to testify that none of their “evidence” even qualified as NFA items.
The prosecution immediately dropped all of the charges but reindicted Adamiak for possession of a PPSh-41 parts kit and four inert destructive devices—RPGs and grenade launcher parts.
The prosecution knew that O’Kelly’s expert testimony could harm their case, so they filed a motion that blocked him from being called as an expert witness, stating “any testimony about the definition of a ‘frame or receiver’ of a machine gun would be both irrelevant and confusing to the jury.”
“We then proceeded to trial, and the 25 items found in my home plus the seven items I sold to the CI were no longer a part of the case,” Adamiak said. “Before trial, the prosecutors presented photos of my gun collection as exhibits, and they specifically told my defense team they were merely being used to show the jury that I had a lot of guns. We were told they are not pursuing these items in the case anymore.”
Questionable testimony by ATF Firearms Enforcement Officer Jeffrey Bodell and the Confidential Informant doomed the defense. Adamiak was convicted for possessing one PPSh-41 parts kit and four destructive devices.
Severe sentencing
“Once I got to the sentencing phase, Liu, the prosecutor, filed multiple memorandums filled with nothing but flat-out lies and misrepresentations in order to villainize me and to aggravate my conduct to increase my sentence,” Adamiak said.
Liu wanted Adamiak sentenced not just for the PPSh-41 parts kit and four destructive devices, but for a total of 1,012 illegal NFA weapons.
They included:
The charged items, demilitarized PPSH-41 kit, M79, M203 flare launchers, and inert RPG-7 training aids.
977 MAC flats, which were defeated at the last minute because of limited testimony from O’Kelly.
23 items seized at Adamiak’s home, a toy STEN submachinegun, five semi-automatic pistols, the Uzi carbines and unregulated parts.
Seven parts sold to the confidential informant, none of which were actual firearms.
The judge counted the 30 additional items toward Adamiak’s sentence even though seven of the items are actually classified by the ATF itself as normal semi-automatic firearms, which are not part of the NFA.
They included five semi-automatic open-bolt MAC/KG-9 style pistols, which even the ATF had said were exempt from the NFA, and Adamiak’s two semi-automatic, pre-ban, 1980’s era, Israeli Military Industries (IMI) closed-bolt Uzi carbines.
“The Uzis were seized the day the ATF raided my home from my locked gun safe, and they had the fake aluminum display barrels installed. According to the ATF seizure receipt for property, they were seized as ‘short barrel rifles.’ Apparently between the 40 federal agents that were at my house to include ATF Firearms Enforcement Officers, they were too undertrained and incompetent to recognize that these items had legal display barrels installed,” Adamiak said.
Even the ATF’s own firearms expert, Bodell, recognized that the Uzis were legal semi-autos and not covered by the NFA.
During trial, the prosecution decided to show the jury numerous photos of Adamiak’s legal and lawfully owned gun collection. Bodell was asked to testify about his observations. Prosecutors asked him about a photo that showed the Uzis in a gun safe.
Bodell: “Yeah, there’s a wide variety of firearms pictured here, including some Uzi’s that I examined. The Uzi’s that I examined were closed-bolt semi-automatic firearms.”
AUSA Liu: “What’s an Uzi?”
Bodell: “Traditionally it’s a compact submachinegun designed by Israeli forces, but the ones I examined were not machineguns.”
AUSA Liu: “Because they were closed bolt?”
Bodell: “And semi-automatic.”
AUSA Liu: “Okay.”
When she prepared her sentence, the federal judge counted all 30 items against Adamiak, including the toy STEN submachinegun, and the seven semi-automatic firearms—including the two Uzi carbines—as machineguns.
Said Adamiak: “Apparently, this can happen to anyone. An ordinary, lawful, and constitutionally protected hobby can be weaponized against you, and your life can be destroyed because of arbitrary interpretations. This particular issue literally involves closed-bolt semi-automatic carbines that ‘look’ like machineguns but are clearly not. If the ATF gets away with this, it will embolden them to do it to others, or to go even further. What’s next? AR-15s? Where is the justice in this?
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