Nicholas Rossi: US fugitive who faked his own death sentenced to total of ten years in prison

An American rapist who faked his own death and fled to Scotland has been sentenced to a total of ten years behind bars.

It’s the second of two rape convictions for Nicholas Rossi, who was sentenced on Tuesday to five years in prison for raping a 21-year-old woman in Orem, Utah, in September 2008.

That conviction comes just weeks after he was sentenced to at least five years in prison for a separate rape charge.

He will serve the two sentences consecutively at Utah Correctional Facility.

Delivering Tuesday’s sentence, Judge Derek P. Pullan said Rossi was a serial sex offender whose “future dangerousness to others” was clear.

In the most recent case, the court heard how Rossi had dated a woman for a short period. After splitting up, the woman visited Rossi’s flat to ask for money that he owed her.

Rossi, who appeared in court under his other name Nicholas Alahverdian, didn’t have the money and prevented his ex-girlfriend from leaving the flat, going on to rape her.

The investigation was initially dismissed, however, the rape kit was eventually retested in 2018, identifying Rossi as the assailant – but he’d already faked his death and fled to the UK.

Investigators tracked him from state to state, and eventually, country to country.

Former Utah investigator Derek Coats, who had worked on Utah’s sexual assault initiative and led the investigation into the hunt for Rossi, told STV News: “I did everything I could to locate every known law enforcement report in the United States, which led to other countries as a result.

“I feel like there is a very good timeline of where and when and what he’s been up to.”

Mr Coats says he followed the money “because someone had to be able to eat or pay rent or things like that”.

“Eventually, it led me to accessing information in his private email account that helped me identify a location within the United Kingdom where he was located,” he said.

On Tuesday, the court in Utah County heard from Rossi’s two victims, who said his crimes had destroyed their lives.

Rossi also addressed the judge, saying: “These women are lying, and what they have done is unjust, unkind, and not plausible in the eyes of the law.”

He added that he would lodge an appeal.

During the hearing, deputy Utah County attorney Stephen Jones highlighted how Rossi had made nearly 4,500 calls to his wife, Miranda Knight, from prison in Utah – 344 of them were made using other prisoners’ accounts.

Mr Jones said this was “another example of Mr Rossi’s manipulation”.

Authorities first tracked Rossi to Bristol in 2020, where he was pretending to be an Irish orphan called Arthur Knight.

He was later arrested in Glasgow in December 2021, while a Covid patient at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, after staff identified his distinctive tattoos from an Interpol “wanted” notice.

At the time, and for years after, he insisted he was the victim of mistaken identity – when in fact he was the man authorities were looking for. In January last year, Rossi was extradited following lengthy proceedings in Edinburgh.

Last October, he finally admitted his true identity in a Utah court, claiming he had fled to escape “death threats”.

The psychology of Nicholas Rossi

Criminologists describe Rossi is a walking index to a book on forensic psychology.

Professor Emeritus at Birmingham City University, David Wilson, has followed Rossi’s story since the beginning. He told STV News the rapist and conman “is going to continue to be a danger to women”.

He believes Rossi’s actions speak to a pattern of behaviour that “isn’t going to change without an intervention”.

Mr Wilson said: “He wants to be the centre of attention. Not just today, but tomorrow the year after and in five years time.

“Rossi, for example, has already said that he’s going to appeal the sentence that he was given in Utah, so this is somebody who has an ingrained pattern of behaviour that isn’t going to change without intervention.“

Mr Wilson added he has “no doubt” that Rossi’s relationships with women were coercive, controlling and manipulative – due to a sense of entitlement and lack of empathy ingrained in him.

He said: “Because of the publicity now surrounding him, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if other women now came forward to talk about what had happened to them when they had been in a relationship with Nicholas Rossi.”

Rossi has said he intends to appeal both convictions.