President Donald Trump has pardoned a Navy veteran who spent almost four years in prison for possessing and selling unregistered weapons.
Patrick Tate Adamiak, a former Navy master at arms, was convicted in federal court in 2023 and sentenced to 20 years in prison after a source with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives purchased eight machine guns from Adamiak’s online business, Black Dog Arsenal, between October 2021 and April 2022.
Authorities found 25 unregistered firearms, two grenade launchers and two antitank missile launchers, according to prosecutors.
Adamiak’s defense was that the items involved in his case were nonfunctional, demilitarized, or replicas he had collected from childhood. He claimed the evidence in his case was misrepresented, and that he sold the unregulated parts legally.
“I spent four years in prison for items that are not firearms that were treated as firearms,” Adamiak, who joined the Navy in 2012 and served for more than 11 years, told The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press.
“We’re talking out in the open, transaction records, photos of the items paid to me in my actual personal name or the name of my business sent directly to my home address because it was a home-based business,” he added.
Trump’s Use of Pardons During Second Administration
Adamiak’s pardon was among 30 clemency grants Trump issued Sept. 4 to multiple individuals.
Trump has previously issued pardons for people in the military and civilians.
In May 2025, he pardoned a former junior Army officer, former 1st Lt. Mark Bashaw, who was found guilty in a 2022 court-martial of violating orders to comply with COVID-19 safety measures.
“I just received a presidential pardon from President Donald J. Trump,” Bashaw said on social media at the time. “I am humbled, grateful, and ready to continue fighting for truth and justice in this great nation.”
Legal experts and Democrats have argued that bypassing traditional Department of Justice screening in favor of White House-run pardons erodes the rule of law and other pardons, including those issued to people who participated in the Capitol Riots in January 2021, have drawn ire.
Adamiak’s Case ‘A Correction of Judicial Error’
Adamiak appealed his convictions to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year.
The court dismissed one county on double-jeopardy grounds but rejected his other arguments. In May, he also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case, but the court declined.
He enlisted in the Navy when he was 17 and later became an E-6 Master-at-Arms, according to the Second Amendment Foundation.
He has a bachelor’s degree and was working on a master’s until his arrest. He was also on track for an officer’s commission within Naval Special Warfare.
Adamiak called Trump’s pardon “an act of a correction of judicial error.”
“The National Rifle Association welcomes President Donald J. Trump’s pardon of Navy veteran Patrick ‘Tate’ Adamiak,” the pro-gun lobby announced September 4. “He served honorably and collected inert relics, replicas, and training devices—not functional firearms—yet received a 20-year sentence under aggressive Biden-era ATF overreach.”
Adamiak said he may rejoin the military now that he is free from prison and living in Virginia Beach.
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