Barron Trump’s call to London police after he said he witnessed a beating during a brief video connection more than a year ago helped lead to the Wednesday conviction of Matvei Rumiantsev, a 22-year-old London receptionist, the case described. The court record described how Trump, who is the youngest son of U.S. President Donald Trump, reported the incident from the United States even though the suspected assault took place in London.
The Associated Press report said Trump made a late-night FaceTime call to the victim, a woman he met on social media, and that the video appeared to show a bare-chested man answering. Trump told investigators the view lasted “maybe one second,” and that he was “racing with adrenaline,” before the camera flipped to the victim being hit while crying and speaking “something in Russian,” according to the account attributed to what he told police.
The report said Trump hung up after a few seconds and then phoned London police, with his call recorded as he pleaded for help while the dispatcher asked him to answer basic questions about the victim. In the recording described by the report, the dispatcher pressed: “How do you know her?” before a back-and-forth in which Trump said, “I don’t think these details matter, she’s getting beat up.” The dispatcher also said, “Can you stop being rude and actually answer my questions?” before asking again how Trump knew the woman.
The report said police went to the London address on Jan. 18 and arrested Rumiantsev. It said he had previously been acquitted at Snaresbrook Crown Court of rape and choking on the night of Trump’s call, and of an additional rape and assault that had been alleged in November 2024, according to the case history described in the report.
Rumiantsev’s defense, as described by the report, included testimony that he was jealous of Trump but also said he felt badly for him because he believed his girlfriend was leading him on. The Associated Press account also said defense lawyer Sasha Wass argued Trump did not know the woman had a boyfriend and questioned how much he could have seen in “five or seven seconds” of video. Wass characterized the woman’s alleged conduct as exploiting her ties to Trump to make the boyfriend “envious” in a “relationship full of dramas,” the report said.
The Associated Press report said Trump, 19, did not testify in the case. It also said Justice Bennathan advised jurors before deliberations that they should treat Barron Trump’s accounts—both the recording of his call to police and his follow-up email to investigators—with caution because he had not been subjected to cross-examination. Bennathan said, as reported, that if Trump had been cross-examined “no doubt” he could have been asked whether he ever got a good view of what happened, whether he actually saw the woman being assaulted, or whether he reached conclusions based on her screams.
The judge also advised that Trump might have been asked whether his perception was biased because he was close friends with the woman, according to the report. The Associated Press account further said Rumiantsev was convicted of perverting the course of justice after he sent the woman a letter from jail asking her to retract her allegations. He is scheduled to be sentenced on March 27.