Russian man sentenced to 4 years in UK jail for assaulting woman after Barron Trump told police
A Russian man was sentenced to four years in prison on Friday for assaulting a woman in London he testified in a video call about President Trump’s youngest son, Barron.
Matvei Rumiantsev, 23, was convicted by a judge on January 28 of assault causing injury but was acquitted of rape and strangulation. He was also convicted of perverting the course of justice because he sent the woman a letter from prison asking her to withdraw her allegations.
In his sentencing speech at Snaresbrook Crown Court in east London, Justice Joel Bennathan said Rumiantsev was “completely unrepentant” and a “jealous man.”
“Your lack of understanding and compassion was evident in the case,” said the judge. “He continued to try to blame the complainant for everything that happened.”
In the January 18 attack last year, Rumiantsev drunkenly assaulted the victim, who has the right to remain anonymous under UK law, when he became jealous of his friendship with Barron Trump. He had met the president’s son, who lives in the US, on social media.
During the attack, Rumiantsev answered a FaceTime call from Barron Trump on the woman’s phone and turned the camera to show her crying on the floor.
The son of the American president then called the police in the British capital and asked for help from the woman.
“I’m calling from the US, uh I just got a call from a girl, you know, she’s being beaten,” Trump told British emergency services on the phone, according to a transcript sent to CBS News by the UK Crown Prosecution Service.
When a paramedic asked for more information, including the victim’s name and age, Trump said: “I mean, these details don’t matter, he’s getting hit.”
When asked about how he knows the woman, the president’s son said: “I don’t think these details are important, she is being beaten but it’s okay, and I met her on social media, I don’t think that’s important.”
Police then went to the address and arrested Rumiantsev, a receptionist who lived in London.
Rumiantsev revealed that he was jealous of Trump but also treated him badly because he thought his girlfriend was leading him.
“I started to explain that I was upset about his conversation with Barron Trump,” Rumiantsev said he testified in January. “I was out of control, but I was trying to let him know that if he felt uncomfortable seeing the messages I had with girls 10 years ago, he might understand how I felt when he was sitting there texting someone else.”
During the trial, defense attorney Sasha Wass said Trump did not know the woman had a boyfriend and asked how much he could see in the 5 or 7 minute video. He said the woman abused her relationship with Trump to make her boyfriend jealous in a “drama-filled relationship.”
Trump, now 19, the only child of Donald and Melania Trump, did not testify in the case.
According to CBS News’ partner, the BBC, Trump said in a statement he wrote to the court in May last year that “he was told by the victim that I am very close to that this person. [the suspect] it was giving him trouble for a long time.”
The judge had advised jurors before they began discussing Barron Trump’s accounts — in the recording of his call to police and his follow-up email to investigators — to be cautious because he had not been cross-examined.
