NC man slashed at cop with a flag pole on Jan. 6; now he faces up to 4 years in prison
On Jan. 6, 2021, Matthew Beddingfield used a flag pole topped by an American flag to slash and stab at the genitalia of a police officer trying to keep him out of the U.S. Capitol.
“You need to back up. This is not the way to do it,” the officer said, according to an account presented in court.
“F--- you!,” Beddingfield replied, according to the prosecutor. “You’re on the wrong side.”
Soon, the Nash County man may find that it is he who’s on the wrong side — of a federal prison cell.
On Thursday, Beddingfield accepted a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty in a Washington, D.C., courtroom to a single count of assault on a police officer.
The resident of Middlesex, 25 miles east of Raleigh, will be sentenced June 22. He was allowed to return to North Carolina until then.
Beddingfield’s crime carries a maximum sentence of eight years in prison. As a part of his plea deal, however, prosecutors have set a sentencing range of 37-46 months.
The longest sentence handed down so far to an N.C. defendant — 44 months — was part of a plea deal offered to former Fort Bragg soldier James Mault, who also was charged with assaulting police.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, will have the final say and could go above or below what the lawyers in the case recommend.
Beddingfield, who was 21 at the time of the riot, is among at least 26 North Carolinians federally charged in connection with the violence.
On Jan. 6, 2021, thousands of Trump supporters, fueled by the former president’s baseless claims of a stolen election, stormed the Capitol to stop congressional certification of Trump’s defeat to now President Joe Biden.
Five deaths have been linked to the mob attack and some 140 police officers defending the building were injured.
Almost 1,000 arrests have been made, including some 325 defendants charged with assaulting or impeding police.
Among the N.C. cases, Beddingfield’s stands out. He was out on bond for an attempted murder charge tied to the 2019 shooting of a Smithfield teenager when he drove to Washington with his father on Jan. 6. (Beddingfield later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge tied to the shooting and received probation.)
At the Capitol, prosecutors say, Beddingfield was among the first rioters to attack police lines, and was caught on camera giving a Nazi salute while carrying the American flag.
Inside the building, he joined a line of rioters who tried to storm the Senate wing. Later, he entered the office of then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy where he left his flagpole and took a bottle of water.
Two weeks later, Beddingfield used his Instagram account — @rightwing.dissident — to offer an epilogue.
“I’d like to reclaim America,” he wrote, “and it is fine if a few of my peoples enemies are ‘hurt’ in the process.”
In return for Beddingfield’s plea on Thursday, prosecutors dropped two other felonies — civil disorder, and remaining on restricted grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon — as well as multiple misdemeanors.
Beddingfield joins a list of at least four other N.C. residents who have accepted plea deals involving riot-related felonies and await sentencing.
They include:
The state’s youngest Capitol riot defendant will be sentenced March 17. He pleaded guilty in October to assaulting or impeding police. Bilyard, who was 18 at the time, was seen on video firing chemical spray at officers. He faces a sentencing range of 47-57 months, which would be the longest sentence handed down so far to an N.C. defendant.
▪ Tara Stottlemyer and Dale “D.J.” Shalvey, both of Conover.
The Catawba County farmers will be sentenced March 29 and could be the state’s first married couple sent to prison. Stottlemyer, who pleaded guilty to felony obstruction, faces a sentencing range of 15 to 21 months. Shalvey pleaded guilty to two felonies, include assaulting police, and faces a range of 41 to 51 months.
▪ Grayson Sherrill of Cherryville.
The 23-year-old Gaston County man faces up to four years in prison when he is sentenced on May 1. Sherrill pleaded guilty Feb. 3 to assaulting a police officer with a metal pole. He was turned into the FBI by his family.
Former High Point police officer Laura Steele, an alleged member of the Oath Keepers, a right wing militia group, remains on trial this week in Washington on multiple felony charges.
