Man who faked his own death and fled to Britain faces sentencing for Utah rape

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A Rhode Island The man who appeared to be faking his death and running away United States of America One of two convicted of raping to avoid rape charges is to be sentenced on Monday utah,

Nicholas Rossi, 38, faces between five years and life in prison when he is sentenced Monday by District Judge Barry Lawrence salt Lake City,

Rossi’s sentence is the first of two after pleading guilty separately in August and September to raping two women in northern Utah in 2008. For his second conviction, he is scheduled to be sentenced on November 4 to between five years and life in prison.

In August, jurors found Rossi guilty of rape after a three-day trial in which both the accuser and her parents took the stand. Rossi did not testify on his own behalf.

It took more than a decade from the rape incident to the conviction. Utah authorities began searching for Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alhavardian, after he was identified in 2018 through a decade-old DNA rape kit that was linked to another case. He was one of thousands of rape suspects identified and later charged as Utah attempted to clear its rape kit backlog.

Months after charges were filed in that case, an online obituary claimed that Rossi died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma on February 29, 2020. But police in his home state of Rhode Island, along with his former lawyer and former foster family, raised doubts about whether he was dead.

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He was arrested the following year while receiving treatment for COVID-19 in Scotland. Hospital staff recognized his distinctive tattoos – including the Brown University crest imprinted on his shoulder, although he had never attended – from an Interpol notice.

He was extradited to Utah in January 2024 after a lengthy court battle. At the time, Rossi insists that he is an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who is being framed. Investigators say they have identified at least a dozen aliases that Rossi used over the years to evade capture.

In his first Utah trial, Rossi’s public defender denied the rape claim and urged jurors not to read too much into his visit to a foreign country.

The victim was living with her parents and recovering from a traumatic brain injury in 2008 when she responded to a personal ad posted by Rossi on Craigslist. They began dating and became engaged within a few weeks.

She testified that Rossi asked her to pay for dates and car repairs, to lend her $1,000 so she would not be evicted, and took out loans to buy their engagement rings. He became hostile, she said, soon after the engagement and raped her in his bedroom one night after she took him home.

She went to the police years later when she heard that Rossi was accused of raping another woman in Utah around the same time.

The victim in that case went to police immediately after Rossi attacked her in his apartment in Orem. The woman had gone there to collect money, she said he had stolen money from her to buy a computer.