LONDON – An elusive U.S. fugitive accused of faking his own death and traveling the globe to avoid rape charges has been extradited to Utah from Scotland, the Utah County prosecutor’s office said Friday.
The man known in the U.S. as Nicholas Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, is charged with sexually assaulting a former girlfriend in Orem, Utah, in 2008, according to local prosecutors. He also faces multiple complaints against him in Rhode Island for alleged domestic violence.
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Rossi, 36, was Utah-bound on Friday and will stand trial in Utah County for felony rape charges, county prosecutor David Leavitt said.
“This is a great day," Leavitt said in a statement thanking his staff for working with U.S. and international authorities to identify Rossi and bring him to justice more than a decade after his alleged crimes.
In response to an inquiry from The Associated Press about Rossi's return, Police Scotland would only confirm it assisted other law enforcement agencies to extradite a 36-year-old man.
Rossi's run from the law took a bizarre turn when he was arrested in December 2021 after being recognized by someone at a Glasgow hospital while he was being treated for COVID-19. He insisted he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight and had never set foot on American soil.
The man had said he was framed by authorities who took his fingerprints while he was in a coma so they could connect him to Rossi. He repeatedly appeared in court in a wheelchair, using an oxygen mask and speaking in a less-than-convincing British accent.
After a protracted court battle, Judge Norman McFadyen of Edinburgh Sheriff Court ruled in August that the extradition could move forward. The judge called Rossi “as dishonest and deceitful as he is evasive and manipulative.”
Prosecutors identified at least 10 aliases Rossi had used to evade capture. They also presented medical reports from doctors involved in his care, some describing how he appeared to have faked seizures and others stating that he did not have any ongoing problems with his lungs.
McFadyen dismissed his claims of mistaken identity as “implausible” and “fanciful.” The judge said Rossi presented unreliable evidence and he wasn't “prepared to accept any statement of fact made by him unless it was independently supported.”
Rossi lost an appeal in December.
Rossi, who grew up in foster homes in Rhode Island, made a name for himself there as a vocal critic of the state’s Department of Children, Youth and Families.
Four years ago, he told media in Rhode Island that he had late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma and had weeks to live. An obituary published online claimed he died Feb. 29, 2020.
About a year later, Rhode Island state police, Alahverdian’s former lawyer and his former foster family questioned whether he was actually dead.
Authorities in Rhode Island have said Alahverdian is wanted in the state for failing to register as a sex offender, though his former lawyer there, Jeffrey Pine, told the AP that the charge had been dropped when he left the state. The FBI has said he also faces fraud charges in Ohio, where he was convicted of sex-related charges in 2008.
Police in England said they also were investigating and seeking to interview Rossi in connection with an older rape allegation made in April 2022 in the city of Chelmsford.
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Melley reported from London.