WASHINGTON — A defendant Jan. 6 who stormed the Capitol and assaulted police with a flagpole while out on bail on one count of attempted first-degree murder has been sentenced to more than three years in federal prison. on Tuesday.
Matthew Beddingfield, a 22-year-old from North Carolina, had pleaded guilty earlier this year to a felony charge of assaulting, resisting, or preventing officers from using a deadly or dangerous weapon during the attack on the Capitol.
Beddingfield was first identified in early 2021 online”sedition huntersThey have identified the January 6 participants, including hundreds who have not been arrested. facial recognition search Photos of Beddingfield at the Capitol revealed stories about Beddingfield’s arrest in connection with the December 2019 shooting of a Hispanic teen in a Walmart parking lot. Detectives confirmed the identification with the help of posts from the father’s Facebook page. of Beddingfield.
After Beddingfield was identified by detectives online, but before he was arrested, he pleaded guilty to Alford to one count of assault with a deadly or dangerous weapon in the murder case and was sentenced to probation. Beddingfield’s team said they robbed him before shooting the teen.
Beddingfield was arrested for participating in the Capitol riots in February 2022 and was later released on strict conditions: He had to live with his grandfather, he couldn’t have access to social media and he couldn’t have a door in his room. .
At his sentencing hearing Tuesday, Assistant US Attorney Sean Murphy called Beddingfield’s actions “egregious” and said Beddingfield “continued to seek violence” on Jan. 6. “She was there for the violence, and she found it over and over again,” Murphy. saying.
While the government said Beddingfield praised Adolf Hitler, gave a Nazi salute during the attack on the Capitol, and appeared to “harbor deep resentment toward the Black, Hispanic, Native American, and LGBTQ+ communities while glorifying the figures, beliefs, language, and ideologies White supremacist US District Judge Carl Nichols said Tuesday that the 38-month prison sentence he imposed was a reflection of Beddingfield’s conduct on January 6 and did not take into account his beliefs.
Beddingfield’s attorney, Leza Lee Driscoll, submitted a photo of Beddingfield with a black person she identified as a long-time friend, as well as photos of Beddingfield with co-workers, writing in one slide that Beddingfield “lives a life of Diversity and inclusion”. She said they believed Beddingfield would be a “very vulnerable inmate” because of his size and age. She also argued that Beddingfield had an “adolescent brain” and was not an adult from a psychiatric perspective.
“He seems to have gotten caught up in the crowd,” Driscoll said, noting that many of the other rioters were much older than Beddingfield and that he did not arrive prepared for battle on January 6, as others had.
Beddingfield told the judge that he came to Washington, DC, in support of former President Donald Trump because he “felt the election was stolen from us.” He apologized for his behavior on January 6, saying that he would learn from his mistakes and that he had allowed his emotions to override his decision-making.
“I was trapped,” Beddingfield said. He said that he hoped this was the last time he would appear before a judge.
Nichols said there was some risk that Beddingfield would re-offend and it was important that he be punished consistently with other troublemakers. Beddingfield had been barred from contacting his father, who, the judge noted, was also on the Capitol grounds but has not been charged, but Nichols said he was now able to meet with his father once a week for up to four hours. until he reports to the Bureau of Prisons to begin his sentence.
More than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the attack on the Capitol and more than 300 have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment.
