LONDON (AP) — A Russian man was sentenced to four years in prison Friday for assaulting a woman in London, in an attack which was witnessed on a video call by U.S. President Donald Trump’s youngest son, Barron.
Matvei Rumiantsev, 23, was convicted by a jury on Jan. 28 of assault with bodily harm but was acquitted of rape and choking charges. He was also convicted of perverting the course of justice because he sent the woman a letter from jail asking
her to retract her allegations.
In his sentencing remarks at Snaresbrook Crown Court in east London, Justice Joel Bennathan said Rumiantsev was “totally unrepentant” and a “man given to jealousy.”
“Your lack of insight and empathy was apparent at trial,” the judge said. “You continue to try to blame the complainant for everything that has happened.”
In the attack on Jan. 18 last year, Rumiantsev drunkenly beat up the victim, who is entitled to anonymity under U.K. law, when he became jealous of her friendship with Barron Trump. She had met the president's son, who lives in the U.S., through social media.
During the assault, 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 U.S. president's son then called police in the British capital and pleaded for help for the woman, telling the operator during a sometimes strained conversation: “It’s really an emergency … I’m calling from the U.S., uh, I just got a call from a girl, you know, she’s getting beat up.”
Police then went to the address and arrested Rumiantsev, a receptionist who lived in London.
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.
During the trial, defense lawyer Sasha Wass said that Trump didn't know the woman had a boyfriend and questioned how much he could have seen in 5 or 7 seconds of video. She said the woman had exploited her ties to Trump to make her boyfriend envious in a “relationship full of dramas.”
Trump, now 19, the only child of Donald and Melania Trump, didn't testify in the case.
The judge had advised jurors before they began deliberating to treat Barron Trump's accounts — on the recording of his call to police and his follow-up email to investigators — with caution because he hadn't been subjected to cross-examination.
