Man guilty of assaulting Barron Trump’s friend after president’s son called 999

A Russian man who attacked a woman while on Facetime to Barron Trump is facing jail.

Matvei Rumiantsev, 22, was jealous of her close friendship to US President Donald Trump’s youngest son when he launched the terrifying attack at his Canary Wharf apartment last January.

Jurors at Snaresbrook Crown Court heard he ‘flew into a rage’ after noticing Barron calling the woman and picked up the call before turning the camera to face her.

Rumiantsev – a former MMA fighter – filmed himself shoving her calling her a ‘slut’ and a ‘whore’ and then kicking her in the stomach while she screamed.

Barron was so alarmed by what he saw that he got two pals to help him figure out how to contact the police here in the UK from across the Atlantic.

The 19-year-old son of the President and his wife Melania has largely been shielded from the political limelight – in contrast to siblings Ivanka, Donald Jr, Eric and Tiffany – and has only been heard speaking publicly in rare snippets of candid footage.

But jurors at the east London court heard dramatic audio of his 999 call just days before his father’s inauguration, in which he pleads with the operator: ‘I just got a call from a girl, you know. She’s getting beat up.’

With a clear tone of urgency in his voice, he adds: ‘It’s really an emergency, please.’

Giving evidence via videolink, the woman, who cannot be named and whose appearance was not shown to the public gallery, said the call ‘was like a sign from God’ and likely ‘saved my life’.

Rumiantsev denied but was found guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and perverting the course of justice.

He was found not guilty of one count of rape and intentional strangulation relating to the same date when Mr Trump made his report to police and another count of rape and assault alleged to have occurred in November 2024.

Police attended his home in east London in the early hours of January 18, 2025, following two 999 calls from the woman and one from Barron.

The woman told officers she had been slapped, punched, kicked and strangled during the assault, which left her with extensive bruising and missing a clump of hair.

She withdrew her statement but later went back on this, telling police her initial account was true and that Rumiantsev had also sexually assaulted her on two occasions.

The woman told detectives he would deliberately get her so drunk that he could have sex with her without her being able to consent.

Jurors heard she was 20 and lived in London at the time of the offences but had spent much of the summer in 2014 in the US.

Rumiantsev told the court he first became aware of the woman’s relationship with Barron Trump in October 2024, when she asked him to take a photo of their messages because she couldn’t screenshot them.

Serena Gates, prosecuting, told jurors Rumiantsev’s temper had ‘started to boil over’ in the autumn of 2024.

She said the 6ft3ins ‘alpha male’ Rumiantsev was jealous of her interactions with male friends, ‘especially, it seems’ the 6ft7ins Mr Trump.

The prosecutor pointed out that Rumiantsev first raped the complainant ‘only three weeks after he was violently smashing things in her flat because of his anger’.

On January 17 the woman received several calls from Mr Trump but didn’t answer them.

Rumiantsev recalled from the witness box that her phone had been ‘constantly buzzing’ that day with calls from the president’s son.

‘Regardless of whether it was before or after those phone calls with Barron Trump what were not answered, the ones around 10pm, inevitably there was tension,’ Ms Gates said.

‘The assault continues – you have heard what (the complainant) said about ending up on the floor and the defendant kicking her in the ribs whilst she’s lying on the floor.’

Ms Gates pointed jurors back to a video filmed by the woman showing Rumiantsev asking her in Russian: ‘Do you understand?’

She told them: ‘Listen to his tone of voice, look at his body language – he was, I suggest, trying to make her understand not to contact Barron Trump by kicking her whilst she was on the floor.

‘That is the extent of his drunk anger by that point in time.’

She continued: ‘And what about that FaceTime call from Barron Trump?

‘Listen again to the 999 call that he makes to the emergency services, listen to the urgency in his voice.

‘He is genuinely concerned for his friend’s safety at that point.

‘Yes, it has taken him some time to get through to the right emergency number in the UK, but one can conclude from the content, I suggest, he’s clearly not spoken to (the complainant) in the intervening period.

‘That’s why he’s so worried about what he saw and heard on the FaceTime call.’

Sasha Wass KC, defending, said in her closing argument that Mr Trump was not aware the woman had a boyfriend and did not know who Rumiantsev was, asking jurors: ‘What could he have actually seen in those five to seven seconds?’

She said: ‘Some of you may have read some of the reporting about this case in the newspapers.

‘If anyone had read the papers and not heard the evidence in this case they would be forgiven for thinking that Barron Trump was the star witness in this case, who saved a damsel in distress from death and destruction.

‘But you have heard the evidence and know better, and you’ve taken an oath to hear the case only on the evidence in the case, and I know that is what you will do.

‘Barron Trump is not and has not been a witness in this case, however what he said to the police about the events of January 18 has been led in evidence by the prosecution.

‘You know that by the May 5 last year, so several months after he phoned 999, Mr Trump answered an email from the police and then failed to engage any further with the police investigation.’

Ms Wass said Mr Trump had got details of his account wrong, including who initiated the video call and who ended it, which she said was the complainant.

Ms Wass described the complainant as a ‘wholly unreliable witness’ who was ‘irrationally jealous’ of Rumiantsev, and said the woman used her friendship with Mr Trump as somewhat of a ‘ruse’ to provoke jealousy during what she called a ‘relationship full of dramas’.

She told jurors that Rumiantsev was a ‘calm and measured’ character who had never been accused of a crime, and asked them to consider why the woman grabbed the phone and ended the call with Mr Trump.

Ms Wass added that Rumiantsev would not have turned the camera towards the complainant if he had been attacking her at the time, arguing the call was ended because the woman felt ‘humiliated’ in front of Mr Trump.

Rumiantsev said he picked up the phone to show Mr Trump the complainant’s hysterical behaviour, Ms Wass said.

The barrister also said the complainant’s alleged injuries were not consistent with her account, noting Rumiantsev’s physical presence and his background in martial arts.

Rumiantsev said he and the woman had been drinking together on the evening of January 17, 2025, and into the early hours of the next day.

He insisted they had consensual sex twice in that time.

Rumiantsev, who said he has experience in freestyle wrestling, accepted that the alleged victim is a lot smaller than him but denied ever strangling, hitting or kicking her.

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