SALT LAKE CITY — An elusive U.S. fugitive accused of faking his personal demise and touring the globe to keep away from rape expenses has been extradited to Utah from Scotland, the Utah County prosecutor’s workplace stated Friday.
The person identified within the U.S. as Nicholas Rossi, whose authorized identify is Nicholas Alahverdian, is charged with sexually assaulting a former girlfriend in Orem, Utah, in 2008, based on native prosecutors. He additionally faces a number of complaints towards him in Rhode Island for alleged home violence.
Rossi, 36, was Utah-bound on Friday and can stand trial in Utah County for felony rape expenses, county prosecutor David Leavitt stated.
“This can be a nice day,” Leavitt stated in an announcement thanking his employees for working with U.S. and worldwide authorities to establish Rossi and produce him to justice greater than a decade after his alleged crimes.
In response to an inquiry from The Related Press about Rossi’s return, Police Scotland would solely affirm it assisted different legislation enforcement companies to extradite a 36-year-old man.
Rossi’s run from the legislation took a weird flip when he was arrested in December 2021 after being acknowledged by somebody at a Glasgow hospital whereas he was being handled for COVID-19. He insisted he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight and had by no means set foot on American soil.
The person had stated he was framed by authorities who took his fingerprints whereas he was in a coma so they might join him to Rossi. He repeatedly appeared in courtroom in a wheelchair, utilizing an oxygen masks and talking in a less-than-convincing British accent.
After a protracted courtroom battle, Decide Norman McFadyen of Edinburgh Sheriff Courtroom dominated in August that the extradition may transfer ahead. The decide known as Rossi “as dishonest and deceitful as he’s evasive and manipulative.”
Prosecutors recognized at the least 10 aliases Rossi had used to evade seize. Additionally they introduced medical reviews from medical doctors concerned in his care, some describing how he appeared to have faked seizures and others stating that he didn’t have any ongoing issues along with his lungs.
McFadyen dismissed his claims of mistaken id as “implausible” and “fanciful.” The decide stated Rossi introduced unreliable proof and he wasn’t “ready to simply accept any assertion of reality made by him until it was independently supported.”
Rossi misplaced an enchantment in December.
Rossi, who grew up in foster properties in Rhode Island, made a reputation for himself there as a vocal critic of the state’s Division of Kids, Youth and Households.
4 years in the past, he informed media in Rhode Island that he had late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma and had weeks to stay. An obituary printed on-line claimed he died Feb. 29, 2020.
A few yr later, Rhode Island state police, Alahverdian’s former lawyer and his former foster household questioned whether or not he was truly useless.
Authorities in Rhode Island have stated Alahverdian is needed within the state for failing to register as a intercourse offender, although his former lawyer there, Jeffrey Pine, informed the AP that the cost had been dropped when he left the state. The FBI has stated he additionally faces fraud expenses in Ohio, the place he was convicted of sex-related expenses in 2008.
Police in England stated in addition they have been investigating and looking for to interview Rossi in reference to an older rape allegation made in April 2022 within the metropolis of Chelmsford.
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Melley reported from London.