Utah judge decides man who allegedly faked death to evade rape charges in the US will face trial

A judge in Utah has decided that Nicholas Rossi, a man accused of faking his own death to evade rape charges, will face trial. The ruling came during Rossi’s preliminary hearing where District Judge Barry Lawrence found that there was enough evidence for a jury trial, as reported by KTVX-TV. Rossi, who is 37 years old, is alleged to have raped a former girlfriend in Salt Lake County in 2008 following an argument. Another accusation against him involves the rape of a 21-year-old woman in Orem, Utah, that same year, but he remained unidentified as a suspect for about ten years due to a backlog of DNA test kits at the Utah State Crime Lab.

Despite requests for comments from Rossi’s attorneys at the Salt Lake Legal Defender Association, no immediate response was provided by Thursday evening. Rossi, also known as Nicholas Alahverdian, has used multiple aliases and claimed to be an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who had never been to the U.S. before and was being set up. Raised in foster homes in Rhode Island, he returned to the state before allegedly faking his death and fleeing the country. An online obituary announced Rossi’s death on Feb. 29, 2020, attributed to late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a claim doubted by authorities and his former foster family.

After being identified and located receiving treatment for COVID-19 at a Glasgow hospital in Scotland, Rossi was arrested in 2021. Following an unsuccessful extradition appeal in December, he remains in custody. Additionally, court documents from Utah County indicate that Rossi faces accusations of sexual assault, harassment, and potential kidnapping in Rhode Island, Ohio, and Massachusetts, according to KTVX-TV.