‘Free Tate’ Initiative Launched & Aims to Free Wrongfully Imprisoned Sailor

Patrick “Tate” Adamiak was wrongfully convicted over trumped up allegations by the ATF. Journalist Lee Williams has been covering this case and the “Free Tate” petition drive has just launched.

Patrick “Tate” Adamiak was wrongfully arrested, charged, and subsequently convicted of multiple felonies. It’s been reported the agents involved in the case from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives fabricated and suppressed evidence to get to this point. Journalist Lee Willaims has been covering this case extensively and says that the RPGs Adamiak was accused of possessing were both dummies–one was marked “inert” and the other “training aid.” Numerous advocacy groups have come together and launched the “Free Tate” petition drive.

New Jersey Firearms Owners Syndicate in conjunction with Early Vote Action have come together to conduct this petition drive. They aim to ask the White House to issue Adamiak a pardon. Adamiak is currently being held at the Federal Correctional Institute, Fort Dix in New Jersey and has been imprisoned since his 2022 arrest.

“Tate should be at the tip of the spear, keeping America safe, not rotting in Fort Dix FCI because he chose to collect non-operable military replicas of vintage firearms from World War II,” Joe LoPorto, the director of legal operations of NJFOS told News2A, who reported on the drive. “A rogue ATF under President Biden, that sought to expand the definition of frames and receivers and machine guns to something far beyond what Congress intended in both the NFA and the GCA, has turned Tate into a criminal when we should be thanking him for his service.”

The kickoff event for the Free Tate drive occurred at an epicenter of Second Amendment advocacy in New Jersey–Gun for Hire at the Woodland Park Range.

“On Saturday, June 28, 2025, LoPorto and other EVA volunteers will be at the Gun For Hire range in Woodland Park from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. to begin collecting petition signatures,” News2A reported. “Over the coming months, he and other EVA volunteers will be at gun stores and shooting ranges across the state.”

Volunteers were also posted at Recoil NJ in Monroe Township, where signatures were gathered as well.

The fact that these groups have to come to Adamiak’s aid in the first place is indicative of complete systemic failure.

“I’ve been through every single thing that he was charged with in his case, every single item there’s not one that’s illegal,”Willams told Cam during a June 11 interview. “I mean, they made this whole thing up, because after they hit his house, they went through everything, they couldn’t find anything illegal.” He further explained that Adamiak has a hearing on his appeal coming up in September. A process that could take another year or two.

While Adamiak should have a good shot at winning upon appeal, Williams reports that might not be the case. “Three new federal prosecutors will be handling Adamiak’s appeal. Of the old crew that got him imprisoned for two decades, one prosecutor is dead, one retired and the third, who was only a temporary assistant, has since left the office,” Williams wrote. “Adamiak is very concerned that the new appellate prosecutors are using his case’s ‘Joint Appendix,’ which is nearly 3,000 pages and contains every record, objection, transcript, exhibit and piece of evidence from his first trial.”

It’s been said that the Joint Appendix is riddled with errors. Adamiak told Williams some of the egregious falsifications in the Appendix includes photographs of “the agent posing with a toy that looks real, asserting that it is, in fact, a machinegun.”

In an interview on Armed American Radio with Mark Walters, Alan Gottlieb, the founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation said that what the ATF has done is “worse than shady” and is “disgusting.” Gottlieb said that SAF is “working day and night to get the kid a pardon and get him out of prison.”

The petition drive occurred on Saturday June 28. LoPorto said that the kick-off event was hugely successful and the groups were able to gather hundreds of signatures. The petition drive is going to continue over the summer leading up to a rally in support of Adamiak to be held outside of the prison.

For more information about Adamiak’s plight head to https://freedomfortate.org/ or follow them on X @FreedomForTate