Rossi was extradited back to the U.S. in 2024 while insisting he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who was being framed.
SALT LAKE CITY — A Rhode Island man accused of faking his own death and fleeing the U.S. to avoid facing rape charges was found guilty Wednesday of sexually assaulting a former girlfriend in the first of his two Utah court cases.
A Salt Lake County jury found Nicholas Rossi guilty of a 2008 rape after a three-day trial during which his accuser and her parents testified. This decision came just hours after 38-year-old Rossi chose not to testify in his own defense. He is scheduled to be sentenced in this case on Oct. 20, with another trial for a separate rape charge set to commence in Utah County in September.
First-degree felony rape carries a punishment in Utah of five years to life in prison, said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill.
“We are grateful to the survivor in this case for her willingness to come forward, years after this attack took place,” said Gill in a statement on Wednesday night. “We appreciate her patience as we coordinated efforts to return the defendant to Salt Lake County, enabling the trial and providing her the opportunity to seek justice. It demonstrated tremendous courage and bravery to confront her attacker in court and hold him accountable.”
Authorities in Utah began looking for Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, after a decade-old DNA sample from a rape kit in 2018 matched his identity. He was one of thousands charged as a result of the state’s initiative to address the backlog of untested rape kits.
Shortly after being charged in Utah County, an online obituary stated that Rossi had passed away on Feb. 29, 2020, from late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma. However, police in Rhode Island, along with his former attorney and a prior foster family, doubted the claims of his death. Rossi was arrested in Scotland the following year while undergoing COVID-19 treatment when hospital staff in Glasgow noticed his distinctive tattoos from an Interpol notice.
Extradited to Utah in January 2024, Rossi continued to insist he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight and claimed he was a victim of a conspiracy. Investigators report that Rossi operated under at least a dozen different aliases over the years to escape capture.
He appeared in court this week in a wheelchair, wearing a suit and tie and using an oxygen tank.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors painted a picture of an intelligent man who used his charm to take advantage of a vulnerable young woman. She was living with her parents and recovering from a traumatic brain injury when she responded to a personal ad Rossi posted on Craigslist. They began dating and were engaged within about two weeks.
On Monday, the woman described being asked to pay for their dates, cover Rossi’s car repairs, lend him $1,000 so he wouldn’t be evicted from his apartment and take on debt to buy their engagement rings. He grew hostile soon after their engagement and raped her in his bedroom one night after she drove him home, she testified.
The woman said dismissive comments from her parents convinced her not to go to the police at the time. She came forward a decade later after she saw him in the news and learned he was accused of another rape from the same year.
Rossi’s lawyers sought to convince the jury that his accuser built up years of resentment after he made her foot the bill for everything in their monthlong relationship. They argued she accused him of rape to get back at him years later when he was getting media attention.
Attorneys for Rossi did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment after the verdict Wednesday night.
Rossi’s accuser in the Utah County case did, however, go to the police at the time. She took the stand Tuesday to testify about her own experiences with Rossi — though he will not stand trial for that rape charge until next month.
Rossi is accused of attacking the second woman, another former girlfriend, at his apartment in Orem in September 2008 after she came over to collect money she said he stole from her to buy a computer. When police initially interviewed Rossi, he claimed she had raped him and threatened to have him killed.
Rossi grew up in foster homes in Rhode Island and had returned there before allegedly faking his death. He was previously wanted in the state for failing to register as a sex offender. The FBI has said he also faces fraud charges in Ohio, where he was convicted of sex-related charges in 2008.
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