Utah Judge Sets Trial Date for Man Accused of Pretending to Be Dead to Escape Us and Avoid Rape Charges

SALT LAKE CITY — A judge in Utah decided Thursday that a man who is accused of pretending to be dead and leaving the U.S. to avoid rape charges will take the stand.

KTVX-TV reported that during Nicholas Rossi’s preliminary hearing, District Judge Barry Lawrence said that the authorities had shown enough proof to warrant a trial by a jury.

Authorities say Rossi, 37, raped a 26-year-old ex-girlfriend in Salt Lake County in 2008 after a fight. In a different case, he is accused of raping a 21-year-old woman in Orem, Utah, that same year. He wasn’t named as a suspect for ten years because the Utah State Crime Lab was short on DNA test kits.

The Associated Press asked his lawyers at the Salt Lake Legal Defender Association for comment on Thursday evening, but they did not reply right away.

Rossi’s real name is Nicholas Alahverdian, but he has gone by many names. He has said that he is an Irish orphan called Arthur Knight who has never been to America and is being set up.

The American wanted person grew up in foster homes in Rhode Island and had gone back to the state before he was accused of lying about his death and running away from the country. A death notice online said Rossi passed away on February 29, 2020, from late-stage non-Hodgkin cancer.

The police and his previous foster family didn’t believe he was dead.

Rossi was caught in Scotland in 2021 after being seen at a hospital in Glasgow while getting treatment for COVID-19. He failed in December to avoid being extradited in the country.

Records from Utah County courts show that Rossi is also being charged with sexual attack, harassment, and possibly kidnapping in Rhode Island, Ohio, and Massachusetts, according to KTVX-TV.