A Rhode Island man who fled the U.S. and faked his own death before adopting different aliases until he was finally exposed by staff in a Scottish hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic was found guilty of rape in Utah.
Nicholas Rossi, 38, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, was convicted by a jury in Salt Lake County on Wednesday, August 13, of sexually assaulting a former girlfriend in 2008. The trial lasted three days. He will be sentenced on October 20.
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,” Gill said in a statement Wednesday night.
“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. It took courage and bravery to take the stand and confront her attacker to hold him accountable.”
The trials are the final chapter in a bizarre saga involving Rossi.
Utah authorities began searching for Rossi when he was identified through a decade-old DNA rape kit in 2018. He was among thousands of rape suspects identified and later charged when the state made a push to clear its rape kit backlog.
Months after he was charged in Utah County, an online obituary claimed Rossi had died on February 29, 2020, of late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
But police in his home state of Rhode Island, along with his former lawyer and a former foster family, cast doubt on whether he was dead.
He was arrested in Scotland the following year 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 while insisting he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who was being framed. Investigators say they identified at least a dozen aliases Rossi used over the years to evade capture.
He appeared in court this week in a wheelchair, wearing a suit and tie, and using an oxygen tank.
This is a developing article. Updates to follow.
This story uses reporting by The Associated Press.
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