American, who faked death and fled to Scotland, gets five years to life for rape
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LOS ANGELES – An American who faked his own death and fled to Scotland to evade justice was sentenced on Oct 21 to five years to life in prison for raping his ex-girlfriend 17 years ago.
Nicholas Rossi, 38, went to great lengths to conceal his identity and flee after committing the rape in the western state of Utah in 2008, the authorities said.
State Judge Barry Lawrence pointed to this as an “aggravating factor” as he handed down the sentence in a Salt Lake City court.
“He is the very definition of a flight risk,” Judge Lawrence said of Rossi. “He fled the country to avoid investigation, he took on an alias, and even in response to this case, refused to admit who he was.”
“I conclude that the only appropriate sentence in this case is to send you to prison,” the judge added.
According to state laws in Utah, where Rossi was convicted in August 2025 of raping his former girlfriend, a judicial commission will decide when he can be released. He was extradited back to the United States in January 2024.
Rossi faces a second sentencing under another rape conviction in November.
His ruses included faking his death under his legal name, Nicholas Alahverdian, and publishing an obituary stating he died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
While on the run in Europe, he posed as an Irishman when he went to a Glasgow hospital in 2021 to be treated for Covid-19.
The authorities in Utah began searching for Rossi when he was identified in 2018 through a decade-old DNA rape kit tied to the other case, according to CBS News.
In 2019, Rossi led people around him to believe he was suffering from advanced cancer. Then he published an online obituary before disappearing and fleeing to Britain.
The target of an Interpol notice, he was arrested in October 2021 after he checked into the Scottish hospital.
He claimed to be Arthur Knight, an Irish orphan. However, police and medical staff identified him as Nicholas Rossi because his tattoos matched Interpol’s description.
Throughout the proceedings, he maintained he was the victim of mistaken identity, claiming even that the tattoos were applied without his knowledge while he was unconscious in the hospital.
He also claimed that his fingerprints, taken at the hospital, were swopped to make him appear as the wanted man. During the extradition proceedings, he showed up in an electric wheelchair, wearing an oxygen mask.
However, a doctor ruled there was no medical reason for this, describing the condition of his legs as “strong and athletic”.
According to Sky News, investigators said Rossi used at least a dozen aliases to evade capture over the years.
In a separate trial in September, he was convicted of another rape in the US, also committed in 2008.
He is scheduled to be sentenced in that case in November. AFP
