Dinner with mom violated a Capitol riot defendant’s custody order; judge won’t jail him.

After announcing in March that he would free a North Carolina man who was awaiting trial on charges of assaulting police at the U.S. Capitol riot, a federal judge in Washington had one last thing to say.

“Let me say this and as loud and clearly as I can,” U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols told Matthew Beddingfield during the March 16 court hearing. “I want to give you a chance. But if you screw up even in the most minor way, I will look very disturbingly at that.“

On Thursday, Nichols told Beddingfield that he indeed had screwed up — this time by violating the terms of his pre-trial release when he had dinner with his mother on May 7.

But Nichols ruled that Beddingfield’s 45-minute stop at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Knightdale, just east of Raleigh, had been a “misunderstanding” — not the serious violation of Beddingfield’s conditions of release that, his prosecutor argued, demanded a return to jail.

As of now, at least 23 North Carolinians have been arrested and charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol. The list includes farmers, former police officer, military recruits and a husband and wife who took their 14-year-old son to the riot. Others remain under investigation.

Beddingfield at the riot

Beddingfield, 21, of Middlesex in Nash County, remains at the center of one of the most multifaceted cases with in-state roots. He is accused of nine offenses, including two counts of assaulting police.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Murphy says Beddingfield was among the first of the thousands of Donald Trump supporters involved in the Capitol riot to attack officers inside and outside the building.

In one incident described by Murphy previously in open court, Beddingfield slashed and stabbed at the genitalia of an officer trying to block him and others from reaching the Capitol. His weapon: a pole he carried bearing an American flag.

“You need to back up. This is not the way to do it,” the officer said, according to Murphy’s account.

“F--- you!,” Beddingfield replied, according to the prosecutor. “You’re on the wrong side. Join us.”

Beddingfield was later photographed outside the Capitol holding the same flagpole in one arm while giving a Nazi salute with the other. His history of posting violently racist white supremacist views on social media has become a matter of public record in his case.

At the time of the violence, Beddingfield was free on bond in North Carolina in connection with an attempted first-degree murder charge tied to a 2019 shooting in Smithfield. He later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and received probation.

His trial on the Capitol charges has not been scheduled. Yet Beddingfield’s custody status has become a running debate on his ability to follow the court’s rules and the level of threat — if any — he poses to his community.

No permission for 3 stops

Beddingfield was released by Nichols to the supervision of his grandfather and required him to remain on home detention except for legal appointments, medical reasons and church services. All other matters required advanced approval from his local probation officer, Scott Plaster.

At first, Beddingfield fully complied with all the restrictions, so much so that Nichols ruled on May 4 that he could return to work. Three days later, Beddingfield got Plaster’s approval for a May 7 haircut to prepare for work. Plaster said he also gave the go-ahead for some essential shopping. In all, Plaster gave him four hours to complete his errands and return to his grandfather’s house.

Beddingfield’s mother picked him just before 3 p.m. He got his haircut, then went shopping at Kohl’s with his mother — both had been approved by Plaster.

Dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings had not. Nor had a stop the two made near his parents’ home to drop off takeout for Beddingfield’s brother. Nor had a stop by a relative’s house to pick up his work boots.

In a court filing, Beddingfield’s defense attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender Leza Lee Driscoll of Raleigh, said Beddingfield and his mother made an honest mistake — thinking they had four hours to take care of any errand, not solely the specific ones approved by Plaster.

Even then, Driscoll argued, Beddingfield had taken steps to comply with the rules. Beddingfield, for example, is banned from seeing his father, who accompanied him to the riot. So when he and his mother dropped off food for his brother, they parked down the street from his parents’ home and made their brother come to them.

Plaster, though, reported a violation. His bosses in Washington joined Murphy in calling for Beddingfield to be put back in jail.

In court Thursday, Murphy argued that Beddingfield again had shown that he could not be trusted, that he had violated his N.C. bond when he traveled to Washington to take part in the violence. Now, after being allowed to return to work, Beddingfield “was pushing the boundaries ... He’s testing the electric fence for the weak point.”

Nichols, a Duke University graduate who was appointed to the D.C. bench by Trump, disagreed, saying Beddingfield had followed the rules well enough to be allowed to return to work and had called Plaster ahead of time to get the OK for the haircut and shopping. Plaster also told the judge that Beddingfield has been at work now for two weeks and remained problem-free.

The judge suggested that more detailed directions might be needed from Plaster on what Beddingfield can and cannot do, and the time he has to do them.

This story was originally published May 27, 2022 at 6:00 AM.

Michael Gordon

The Charlotte Observer

704-358-5095

Michael Gordon has been the Observer’s legal affairs writer since 2013. He has been an editor and reporter at the paper since 1992, occasionally writing about schools, religion, politics and sports. He spent two summers as “Bikin Mike,” filing stories as he pedaled across the Carolinas.