NC man will be sentenced Tuesday for Jan. 6 crime. First, he faces the cop he assaulted.

When Matthew Beddingfield enters a federal courtroom in Washington, D.C., this week, Aquilino Gonell again will be waiting.

The paths of the eastern North Carolina man and the former police sergeant first crossed on Jan. 6, 2021, when Beddingfield, then 20, was part of an angry mob attacking the U.S. Capitol, and Gonell was among an overwhelmed line of cops trying to defend it.

They will meet again Tuesday, this time at Beddingfield’s sentencing hearing.

In February, the Nash County man, now 23, pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer.

In a Thursday filing, federal prosecutors recommended that he spend 42 months in prison. That would be the second-longest sentence so far for a N.C. defendant.

But before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols hands down his decision, Gonell, a 16-year Capitol Police veteran forced to retire due to his Jan. 6 injuries, would like a word.

He has asked to read his victim-impact statement in open court, detailing how Beddingfield “desecrated the American flag by using it as a weapon” against him and other officers, turning the wooden pole into a spear to stab at Gonell’s thighs and groin, inflicting what Gonell describes as “excruciating pain.”

“The vicious hits by him kept coming until his flagpole bended (sic), nearly breaking (from) so many strikes he did on us,” Gonell writes in the statement.

“I lived through the onslaught as it was happening, and I barely survived it. I still have PTSD, remembering what Rioter Beddingfield did to me and my colleagues that day.”

Beddingfield is among at least 30 North Carolinians charged federally in connection with the Jan. 6 violence. Thousands of rioters, spurred on by the unfounded voter-fraud claims of former President Donald Trump, overran the Capitol to stop congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win.

The investigation continues, including on whether the Trump White House intentionally incited the violence to block the transfer of power.

The attack has been tied to at least five deaths; 140 police officers were injured. Close to 1,100 arrests have been made.

Beddingfield is among 350 defendants charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding officers or employees.

Thirteen N.C. residents have already been handed sentences ranging from 9 days to 44 months. The longest terms have been levied against defendants who attacked police.

Beddingfield was arrested Feb. 8, 2022, then indicted on nine charges including multiple felonies. As part of a deal with the government, he pleaded guilty to a single felony and faces a sentencing range of 37-46 months. Nichols, a Trump appointee, can go above or below the government’s recommended punishment.

Beddingfield’s attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender Leza Driscoll of Raleigh, did not respond to an email from The Charlotte Observer seeking comment. As of Friday, she had not filed her sentencing memo.

‘A slow death’

The defendant’s history of violence predates the Capitol.

When he and his father drove to Washington on Jan. 6, Beddingfield was awaiting trial on an attempted murder charge tied to the December 2019 shooting of a minor in a Walmart parking lot in Smithfield. Beddingfield later entered an Alford plea to a lesser charge and received probation.

Six weeks before the riot, according to court documents, Beddingfield went on Instagram to exhort violence against his political enemies.

“Anyone in antifa deserves a slow death. They are literally communists,” he wrote.

A year after the riot, he had not backed off, posting, “I’d like to reclaim America and it is fine if a few of my peoples enemies are ‘hurt’ in the process.”

On Jan. 6, according to prosecutors, Beddingfield was among the first members of the mob to breach police lines on the west side of the Capitol and fought with officers inside and outside the building.

“You need to back up. This is not the way to do it,” one unidentified officer told him, according to an account presented earlier in court.

“F--- you!,” Beddingfield replied before again slashing the cop with his flagpole. “You’re on the wrong side.”

When his flagpole broke — and with “vitriol still in his tank,” as prosecutors described it in their new filing — Beddingfield tore off a shard of wood and hurled it at another officer.

Later during the melee and while still holding his American flag, Beddingfield stopped to face the Capitol and gave a Nazi salute, a video screen grab included in court documents shows.

Beddingfield was released on bond to live with his grandfather in rural Nash County, 30 miles east of Raleigh, and has had no parole violations. He has since taken responsibility for his actions and expressed remorse.

In his sentencing memo, however, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Murphy said Beddingfield’s words of contrition came only after his arrest, and are undermined by what the defendant wrote online before and after the riot.

Those posts “were those of a young man not only girding for another battle but seeking to grow any viable sparks of dissent into a full conflagration,” Murphy wrote. “This kind of prisoner penitence should do little to move the needle in favor of a lighter sentence.”

Gonell, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq, has appeared at the trials of other Jan. 6 defendants accused of attacking him. He also was among the police officers chosen to testify in July 2021 before the House select committee investigating the riot.

“To be honest, I did not recognize my fellow citizens that day, or the United States they claimed to represent,” Gonell said.

He recalled being struck by his own baton and pulled into the melee by the mob.

“I too was being crushed by the rioters,” he said. “I could feel myself losing oxygen and recall thinking to myself, ‘This is how I’m going to die.’”