Nicholas Rossi, 35, will now face additional extradition proceedings to find out whether or not he needs to be despatched residence to be tried on felony rape prices in Utah, the place he’s wished in reference to a sexual assault in 2008, based on the Utah Division of Public Security.
“I’m in the end happy on the steadiness of possibilities … that Mr. Knight is certainly Nicholas Rossi, the individual searched for extradition by the US,” the choose, Norman McFadyen, stated, citing fingerprint, tattoo and photographic proof. McFadyen known as Rossi’s claims, together with that he’s an Irish-born orphan named Arthur Knight, “implausible” and “fanciful.”
Scottish authorities arrested Rossi, additionally identified by an alias, Nicholas Alahverdian, in December 2021 after monitoring him to the covid-19 ward of a Glasgow hospital. Staffers there had acknowledged him and his tattoos from an Interpol discover, the Scottish Solar reported.
For the previous 11 months, Rossi, who attended court docket in a wheelchair, has dragged out the authorized proceedings, firing a number of attorneys, altering his accent and accusing regulation enforcement of torture. He additionally claimed that authorities tried to border him by giving him tattoos much like these of the wished man whereas he was in a coma, in addition to by taking and sending his fingerprints to Interpol.
Earlier than fleeing to the UK, Rossi faked his personal demise. In February 2020, simply weeks after the FBI questioned him relating to a fraud case in Ohio, Rossi, who was dwelling in Rhode Island, posted an obituary on-line that stated he died of most cancers.
“His final phrases had been ‘concern not and run towards the bliss of the solar,’” the obituary stated, including that his hospital room was “crammed with the sounds of the tip credit for the 1997 movie ‘Contact’ by composer Alan Silvestri.”
Identified then as Nicholas Alahverdian, a baby welfare reform advocate, he was honored in demise by the Rhode Island legislature, and the mayor of Windfall, the state capital, issued a press release lamenting the lack of a “beloved neighborhood chief.”
A 12 months later, nonetheless, the Windfall Journal reported that state police didn’t imagine he was lifeless. Now, he’s wished in Rhode Island, accused of failing to register as a intercourse offender.
In Utah, authorities had retested DNA from a 2008 sexual assault equipment, and outcomes confirmed it matched Rossi’s profile from an identical cost at a neighborhood faculty in Ohio. The State Bureau of Investigations now says it has recognized Rossi as a suspect in related circumstances all through Utah and elsewhere in the US.
On Wednesday, court docket officers informed Rossi that two extra ladies got here ahead with accusations of sexual offenses in Utah in 2008, based on the Scottish Solar.
In an interview with BBC Scotland, one of many ladies who accused Rossi of sexual assault stated, “He’s making an attempt to idiot everyone, and I’m glad so many individuals see by it.”