LONDON β The 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 U.S. President Donald Trump.
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's friendship with Trump.
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.
"This view lasted maybe one second and I was racing with adrenaline," Trump told police. "The camera was then flipped to the victim getting hit while crying, stating something in Russian."
Barron Trump watches as his father, President Donald Trump, attends a Jan. 20, 2025, indoor presidential inauguration parade event at Capital One Arena in Washington.
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.
"How do you know her?" the operator asked after a back-and-forth dialogue.
"I don't think these details matter, she's getting beat up," Trump said.
"Can you stop being rude and actually answer my questions?" the dispatcher said. "If you want to help the person, you'll answer my questions clearly and precisely, thank you. So how do you know her?"
Police went to the address on Jan. 18 and arrested Rumiantsev, 22, a receptionist who lived in London.
He was acquitted in Snaresbrook Crown Court of rape and choking the woman the night Trump called police, and an additional rape and assault alleged in November 2024.
Rumiantsev testified that he was jealous of Trump but also felt badly for him because he thought his girlfriend was leading him on.
Defense lawyer Sasha Wass said Trump didn't know the woman had a boyfriend and questioned how much he could have seen in five or seven seconds of video.
Wass said the woman exploited her ties to Trump to make her boyfriend envious in a "relationship full of dramas."
Trump, 19, the only child of Donald and Melania Trump, didn't testify in the case.
Justice Bennathan advised jurors before they began deliberating to treat Barron Trump's accounts β on the recording of his call to police and his follow-up email to investigators β with caution because he hadn't been subjected to cross-examination.
"If 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," Bennathan said. "He might also have been asked whether his perception was biased because he was close friends with (her)."
Rumiantsev alsoΒ was convicted of perverting the course of justice, because he sent the woman a letter from jail asking her to retract her allegations. He's scheduled to be sentenced March 27.
Photos show the first year of President Donald Trump's second term
FILE - President Donald Trump boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Aug. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - Guests including Mark Zuckerberg, from left, Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk, arrive to attend the 60th Presidential Inauguration in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump puts on the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize presented to him by FIFA President Gianni Infantino during the 2026 FIFA World Cup draw at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walk arm in arm into Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., Dec. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
FILE - Construction workers, bottom right, atop the U.S. Treasury, watch as work continues on a largely demolished part of the East Wing to make room for a ballroom, at the White House in Washington, Oct. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
President Donald Trump departs after speaking with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
FILE - Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., second from right, and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., right, attend a news conference regarding the Epstein Files Transparency Act, outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - California Highway Patrol officers dodge rocks thrown by protesters against President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, near the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, June 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
FILE - As prisoners stand looking out from a cell, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, March 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump receives Marc Fogel, a Pittsburgh-area school teacherΒ who was deemed wrongfully held in a Russian prison for years before being freed, at the White House in Washington, Feb. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, left front, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, third from right, and U.S. military senior leadership listen to President Donald Trump speak at Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Va., Sept. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - A gold-colored item embossed with the word 'President' sits on the Resolute desk in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Nov. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
FILE - U.S. Capitol Police remove protesters who started shouting as the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget began to testify on proposed budget cuts, during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing at the Capitol in Washington, June 25, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - Republican members of Congress gather round to shake hands with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., center bottom, after he signed President Donald Trump's signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, at the Capitol in Washington, July 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump stands with Erika Kirk at the conclusion of a memorial for her husband, conservative activist Charlie Kirk, in Glendale, Ariz., Sept. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump meets with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - Oscar Villanueva holds a sign in support of talk show host Jimmy Kimmel outside El Capitan Entertainment Centre, where his late-night show is staged, in Los Angeles, Sept. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before boarding Air Force One at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown, Pa., Aug. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - Protesters against President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown confront police on the 101 Freeway near the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, June 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir PutinΒ arrive for a press conference at Joint Base Elmendorf- Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, Aug. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - A sunrise view of the U.S. Capitol as seen from the National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump reads a copy of the New York Post as he arrives at Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Fla., April 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
FILE - Vice President JD Vance, right, speaks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as President Donald Trump listens in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, Feb. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/ Mystyslav Chernov, File)
FILE - Elon Musk holds up a chainsaw he received from Argentina's President Javier Milei, right, as they arrive to speak at the Conservative Political Action or CPAC Conference in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
FILE - Federal agents detain Paraguayan Carlos Javier Lopez Benitez, center, as they pull away his sister, Porfiria Lopez, a U.S. citizen, left, outside immigration court at the Jacob K. Javits federal building, in New York, July 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump holds a saber after using it to cut a cake at the Commander in Chief inaugural ball in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)
FILE - Teyana Gibson Brown, standing in her doorway, wife of Garrison Gibson, reacts after a federal immigration officer used a battering ram to break down a door before arresting her husband, in Minneapolis, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump speaks during an event to announce new tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
FILE - A child watches as DEA officers patrol along the National Mall in Washington, Aug. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
FILE - Visitors take photos backdropped by a bronze painted sculpture depicting President Donald TrumpΒ and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, on the National Mall near the Capitol in Washington, Sept. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - A group of migrants wait to be processed between two border walls separating Mexico and the United States in San Diego, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)
