US man found in Scottish hospital after faking his own death two years prior

Utah County Attorney’s Office is currently working with federal and international agencies to have Rossi extradited

A resident of Rhode Island who is currently in hospital with Covid was arrested in Scotland after he faked his death to escape a 2008 sexual assault charge in the US. Nicholas Rossi, 34, provided the name Arthur Knight at a hospital in Glasgow, where he spent a month in the ICU with Covid. But this is how they caught him. Utah County Attorney David O. Leavitt stated that Rossi may have avoided justice if he remained “off the grid”, NBC reports. [caption id="attachment_311441" align="alignnone" width="2048"]

Rossi may have avoided justice if he remained “off the grid”/Via Getty[/caption] “It’s a lot more difficult than people imagine,” he said. “People may not know where you are, but with social media, the world is small enough that if anyone sees a picture of you…if you’re going to be off the grid, you better stay in your house and never leave, because someone is going to see you.” Back in 2008, Rossi was accused of raping a 21-year-old woman, who likely knew her attacker by one of his eight different aliases. The charges were not brought forth until almost a decade later, when hundreds of rape kits were tested thanks to the Utah Sex Assault Kit Initiative. In 2018, Rossi was tied to sexual assault, harassment, and kidnapping cases in Massachusetts, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Utah. Lawyers believed that Rossi had “fled the country to avoid prosecution,” and he later faked his death by posting a fake obituary on EverLoved.com. It states that Nicholas Alahverdian, one of his aliases, died on February 29, 200, from non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. Utah County Attorney’s Office is currently working with federal and international agencies to have Rossi extradited back to the US to be tried for his alleged crimes.