A Rhode Island man accused of faking his death and fleeing the country to avoid rape charges was found guilty Wednesday of sexually assaulting his former girlfriend.
Nicholas Rossi, 38, was arrested in December 2021 while undergoing treatment for COVID-19 at a hospital in Glasgow, Scotland.
Local authorities recognized him by tattoos shown in pictures circulated by Interpol, but Rossi insisted he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight, claiming mistaken identity. He was extradited to the U.S. in early 2024 following a series of legal proceedings.
On Wednesday, after a three-day trial in which his accuser took the stand and Rossi declined to testify on his behalf, a jury in Salt Lake City found him guilty of rape.
“We are grateful to the survivor in this case for her willingness to come forward, years after this attack took place,” Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said in a statement late Wednesday.
“We appreciate her patience as we worked to bring the defendant back to Salt Lake County so that this trial could take place and she could get justice,” Gill added. “It took courage and bravery to take the stand and confront her attacker to hold him accountable.”
Rossi — one of several aliases used by the defendant, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian — was identified through a DNA rape kit in 2018.
In early 2020, Rossi claimed he had late-stage non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and had only weeks to live. An obituary posted online said “his battle for life ended on February 29, 2020,” at the age of 32, adding that he died surrounded by his wife, their two children, and extended family.
Rossi is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 20. In September, however, he will face another trial in Utah County, where he is accused of raping a 21-year-old woman in 2008.
With News Wire Services
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