Nicholas Rossi: Fugitive found guilty of rape in Utah after allegedly faking his own death to avoid charges
A man who allegedly faked his own death to avoid rape charges has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a former girlfriend.
Nicholas Rossi, of Rhode Island, was convicted Wednesday in the first of two trials in Utah.
A Salt Lake County jury found him guilty of a 2008 rape after a three-day trial.
His accuser and her parents testified during the proceedings.
The verdict was handed down just hours after 38-year-old Rossi declined to testify in his own defense.
He will be sentenced on October 20.
Rossi is also due to stand trial in September in Utah County on another rape charge.
An online obituary claimed that Rossi died on February 29, 2020, of late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
However, police in his home state, along with his former lawyer and a former foster family, cast doubt on whether he was actually dead.
He was arrested in Scotland in 2021 while receiving treatment for Covid-19 after hospital staff in Glasgow recognized his distinctive tattoos from an Interpol notice.
Rossi was extradited to Utah in January 2024 after losing an extradition appeal, in which he claimed he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who was being framed.
Who is Nicholas Rossi?
Rossi was born as Nicholas Alahverdian in Rhode Island, in July 1987 to Diana and Jack Alahverdian, according to reports in US newspaper The Providence Journal.
He was adopted by his stepfather David Rossi, and changed his surname to Rossi.
He grew up in Rhode Island foster homes and made a name for himself as a vocal critic of the state’s Department of Children, Youth and Families.
According to his former lawyer, Rossi had moved to Ireland in 2019 but the exact location is unclear.
A sealed arrest warrant for the Orem Utah rape was issued in 2020 after he was identified as a suspect a decade after the alleged incident.
That delay was due to a backlog of DNA test kits at Utah State Crime Lab.
Under the guise of Arthur Brown, Rossi is believed to have met his wife, Miranda Knight, in Bristol in 2019 and married her in early 2020, assuming the name Arthur Knight.
The pair moved up to Glasgow in 2021 where he claimed to be a professor teaching at the University of Glasgow.
Miranda Knight’s brother, Kevin Knight, told the Daily Record in 2022 that she had been distraught when accusations came to light and that she was in denial, believing the police had the wrong man.
He also said that Rossi had always spoken with a thick Irish accent and never spoke about his family.
Rossi was extradited to the US after losing his final appeal in December 2023.
