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 President 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," the AP reports.
"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 UK law, when he became jealous of her friendship with Barron Trump. She had met the president's son, who lives in the US, through social media. During the assault, Rumiantsev, a former MMA fighter, answered a FaceTime call from Barron Trump on the woman's phone and turned the camera to show her crying on the floor.
The 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 US, 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. During the trial, 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.
- 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 claimed the woman had exploited her ties to Trump to make her boyfriend envious in a "relationship full of dramas."
The judge praised Barron Trump for his actions, Sky News reports. "At one stage in the violence there was a call to or from her friend Barron Trump," Bennathan said. "He saw you beating her up and you held the phone and filmed her, an angry act to humiliate her. Mr, Trump properly and responsibly, despite being in the United States, made sure the emergency services here were called, and he told them what he had seen." The judge said the sentence should mean that Rumaintsev is "automatically liable to deportation" when he has completed his sentence.
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