Who is Nicholas Rossi? US fugitive who claims to be another person
The 35-year-old was already a convicted sex offender when he faked his personal demise in 2020 and fled to Scotland to keep away from being prosecuted for rape and sexual assault.
In December 2021, he was traced to a Covid ward in Glasgow, the place he was lastly caught and arrested, and court docket proceedings have been going down ever since to find out whether or not he must be extradited.
Rossi appeared on the court docket on Wednesday by video hyperlink after claiming to be unwell.
But who precisely is Nicholas Rossi?
Here is all the things we all know.
Who is Nicholas Rossi?
Nicholas Rossi, born Nicholas Alahverdian, is an American intercourse offender.
He was raised in Rhode Island’s social service system throughout the Department of Children, Youth, and Families.
While he was a scholar at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio, in January 2008, he was discovered responsible of sexual imposition and public indecency. Rossi met the feminine scholar in query on MySpace earlier than arranging lunch. He informed her that he was new to the realm and needed to make pals. After lunch, he provided to stroll her to class however, on the way in which, he assaulted her.
He was ordered to pay a superb and register as a intercourse offender for 15 years.
In September 2008, a rape was reported to the officers. Rossi’s former girlfriend alleged that he pushed her onto a sofa and compelled her to have intercourse as she begged him to cease. Unfortunately, the case sat chilly in Utah for greater than a decade.
In 2011, Rossi launched a high-profile bid to sue these concerned in his care in Rhode Island, claiming he was bodily and mentally abused. While the state denied legal responsibility, it will definitely settled with Rossi, reportedly for about $70,000 (£55,320).
In 2015, six months after they met in church, Rossi married Kathryn Heckendorn in Dayton, Ohio. Talking to the BBC, Heckendorn revealed that she felt rushed and knew it was a mistake.
She defined: “He broke me down and we got married without telling anybody,” she stated. “We went to the courthouse, it was him and I and the judge, and we went home and we started life.
“It was the first day he first hit me, right after we were married.”
Heckendorn stated Rossi lower her off from her family members, informed her what she might put on, and would punch, push and restrain her.
“I would be hit on a daily occurrence,” she stated. “[I would be] put down verbally [and told] just how stupid, dumb I was. If I didn’t act that way, I wouldn’t have to get hurt.
“There were times when he would hold a knife to my throat or his throat.
“When he had it to my throat, I told him to just go ahead, it’ll be better than this hell I’m living in.
“As soon as I said that, he let me go and he held the knife to his throat and I laughed. I said, ‘Go ahead, that’s even better’. He put the knife down and he just started hitting me.”
Heckendorn lastly escaped and used a recording of an occasion of abuse to show her case. The decide that dominated over their divorce case accused Rossi of “gross neglect of duty and cruelty”.
In late 2019, Rossi claimed that he had been identified with stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and was dying.
Around that very same time interval, the police had been additionally investigating Rossi for identification theft and bank card fraud as his foster dad and mom accused him of racking up $200,000 (£156,000) of debt of their names.
He is believed to have met Miranda Knight in Bristol that very same yr earlier than marrying her in early 2020.
While it’s unclear when Rossi left the US for the UK, an obituary appeared on-line in early 2020 saying that he’d handed away and his ashes had been scattered at sea.
And, in July 2020, the proof from the 2008 rape incident was entered into the database and revealed that the prison was Nicholas Rossi.
In 2021, Rossi, now utilizing the alias Arthur Knight, and his spouse moved to Glasgow.
When Covid hit, Rossi needed to be hospitalised on the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, the place workers recognised his face and tattoos from the Interpol needed discover.
On December 13, 2021, he was served with an Interpol pink discover and recognized as Rossi.
Since then, he has made a sequence of court docket appearances, insisting that they’re mistaking him for Rossi. He additionally claimed that he was given tattoos whereas unconscious on the hospital in an try to border him.
He appeared in court docket in a wheelchair, his accent modified a number of occasions as he gave proof, and claimed he was physically unwell. Meanwhile, his fingerprints and tattoos had been discovered to match that of Rossi’s and medical consultants informed the court docket they didn’t discover any cause for Rossi to be utilizing a wheelchair as his legs had been “strong and athletic”.
While he fought the extradition course of for so long as he might, the Scottish court ruled that he could be extradited to the US to face the prison fees in opposition to him.
Sheriff Norman McFadyen stated, “He continues to take care of that he’s an Irishman, adopted at beginning, lengthy resident within the United Kingdom and who has by no means set foot within the United States.
Despite a court docket ruling final November that he’s Rossi, the accused insists it’s a case of mistaken identification and that he’s truly an Irish orphan referred to as Arthur Knight.