LONDON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The crime was in London, the suspect was Russian and the witness who saw the beating on a video call was in the United States and happened to be the youngest son of President Trump.<\/p>\n
Barron Trump called police in the British capital and his intervention more than a year ago led Wednesday to the assault conviction of Matvei Rumiantsev, who admitted he was jealous of his girlfriend\u2019s friendship with Trump.<\/p>\n
Trump said he placed a late night FaceTime call to the victim, a woman he met on social media, and was startled when it was answered by a bare-chested man. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis view lasted maybe one second and I was racing with adrenaline,\u201d Trump told police. \u201cThe camera was then flipped to the victim getting hit while crying, stating something in Russian.\u201d<\/p>\n
The call was hung up after a few seconds and Trump then phoned London police in a recording in which Trump desperately pleaded for help as the dispatcher insisted he answer basic questions about the victim. <\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you know her?\u201d the operator asked after a back-and-forth dialog.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think these details matter, she\u2019s getting beat up,\u201d Trump said. <\/p>\n
\u201cCan you stop being rude and actually answer my questions?\u201d the dispatcher said. \u201cIf you want to help the person, you\u2019ll answer my questions clearly and precisely, thank you. So how do you know her?\u201d<\/p>\n
Police went to the address on Jan. 18 and arrested Rumiantsev, 22, a receptionist who lived in London. <\/p>\n
He was acquitted in Snaresbrook Crown Court of rape and choking the woman on the night Trump called police, and an additional rape and assault alleged in November 2024.<\/p>\n
Rumiantsev testified that he was jealous of Trump but that he also felt badly for him because he thought that his girlfriend was leading him on.<\/p>\n
Defense lawyer Sasha Wass said that Trump didn\u2019t know the woman had a boyfriend and questioned how much he could have seen in five or seven seconds of video. <\/p>\n
Wass said that the woman exploited her ties to Trump to make her boyfriend envious in a \u201crelationship full of dramas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump, 19, the only child of Donald and Melania Trump, didn\u2019t testify in the case.<\/p>\n
Justice Bennathan advised jurors before they began deliberating to treat Barron Trump\u2019s accounts \u2014 on the recording of his call to police and his follow-up email to investigators \u2014 with caution because he hadn\u2019t been subjected to cross-examination.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he had done so, no doubt, he could have been asked about things such as whether he ever got a good view of what happened, whether he actually saw (the woman) being assaulted, or jumped to this conclusion on the basis of her screams,\u201d Bennathan said. \u201cHe might also have been asked whether his perception was biased because he was close friends with (her).\u201d<\/p>\n
Rumiantsev was also convicted of perverting the course of justice, because he sent the woman a letter from jail asking her to retract her allegations. He\u2019s scheduled to be sentenced on March 27.<\/p>\n
Melley writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The crime was in London, the suspect was Russian and the witness who saw the beating on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[216403,23922,216404,748,188,393,216405,13942,4884,257,40178,216401,529,2212,25149,16,15,10393,359,216402,3137],"class_list":{"0":"post-727037","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-assault-conviction","9":"tag-barron-trump","10":"tag-basic-question","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-crime","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-few-second","15":"tag-girlfriend","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-london","18":"tag-london-police","19":"tag-matvei-rumiantsev","20":"tag-police","21":"tag-rape","22":"tag-recording","23":"tag-uk","24":"tag-united-kingdom","25":"tag-victim","26":"tag-video","27":"tag-video-call","28":"tag-woman"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115974537511059671","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}