UT v. Nicholas Rossi: Fugitive Sex Offender Trial

SALT LAKE COUNTY, Utah (Court TV/Scripps News Salt Lake City/AP) — A man accused of raping two women years before fleeing the U.S. and allegedly faking his own death is standing trial in Utah.

Nicholas Rossi, also known as Nicholas Alahverdian, is accused of raping two women in 2008. Prosecutors are trying the cases separately, with the first trial taking place in Salt Lake County.

Prosecutors say Rossi faked his own death in Rhode Island, where he grew up in foster care, and fled to Europe after being identified as a suspect in a rape case in Orem, Utah. In 2020, Rossi, who was an outspoken critic of Rhode Island’s Department of Children, Youth and Families, told a media outlet that he had late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma and had weeks to live. An obituary published online claimed he died Feb. 29, 2020, reported The Associated Press.

Rossi was arrested in Scotland in December 2021 after he was hospitalized with COVID-19. At the time of his arrest, he insisted he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight and had never set foot on American soil.  In court appearances, he said he was framed by authorities who took his fingerprints while he was in a coma so they could connect him to Rossi. He was extradited to Utah in 2024.

The FBI has said he also faces fraud charges in Ohio, where he was convicted of sex-related charges in 2008. At one point, he was also wanted in Rhode Island for failing to register as a sex offender.

Rossi’s first trial is for allegations that he raped his former girlfriend in 2008 after an argument. Prosecutors say the alleged victim contacted authorities after seeing news of his arrest. Rossi pleaded not guilty to a first-degree felony rape charge, according to Scripps News Salt Lake City.

Rossi’s second trial will take place in Utah County, where he’s accused of raping another woman in 2008. He was not identified as a suspect until about a decade later, due to a backlog of DNA test kits at the Utah State Crime Lab, reported the AP.

TRIAL UPDATES

DAY 1 – 8/11/25

• Prosecutors painted a picture of an intelligent man who used his charm to take advantage of a vulnerable young woman. He raped her when she pushed back against his attempts to control her, said Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Brandon Simmons.
  • WATCH: Prosecutor: Rossi Used Intelligence, Charm to Take Advantage of Women
• Rossi’s lawyers sought to convince the jury that the alleged victim built up years of resentment after Rossi made her foot the bill for everything in their monthlong relationship, and accused him of rape to get back at him a decade later when she saw him in the news.
  • WATCH: Defense: Bitter, Resentful Ex Made False Rape Claims Against Rossi
• Rossi appeared in court in a wheelchair, wearing a suit and tie and using an oxygen tank.
• The alleged victim testified she met Rossi online in November 2008 as she was recovering from a brain injury suffered in a car accident. By all appearances, it was a whirlwind relationship. Their first date, she said, was on her birthday.
  • “He was very charming and seemed very interested in school and politics and music, and he was just very nice to me,” she told the jury.
  • WATCH: Fugitive Sex Offender Trial: Nicholas Rossi’s Alleged Victim Testifies
  • But the woman described always being asked to come up with money for dates, to fix a tire, and even $1,000 to help Rossi avoid being evicted from his apartment. She had him over for Thanksgiving dinner with her parents. On Black Friday, they found themselves at the Gateway mall, where they looked at engagement rings, she said.
  • “Unfortunately, Nick didn’t have the credit score to get the rings, so I had to co-sign on them,” she testified.
  • They had only been seeing each other for two weeks, but she was interested in marriage at the time, she told the jury. They bought the rings and she started wearing hers. Rossi pushed for her to marry him in a temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, even though she was starting to drift away from her faith, she said.
  • The woman said Rossi drank and smoked during their relationship, which was deteriorating with Rossi “becoming controlling and saying mean things to me,” she testified.
  • On the night of the alleged rape, the victim said Rossi had said something rude to her, so she took off her ring, threw it in her purse and walked to her car. He followed her,  yelling at her and pounding on the exterior of the car. She finally let him in to drive him home, she told the jury. On the drive home, Rossi calmed down, and she agreed to go into his house.
  • “Were you thinking about going inside to rekindle the relationship?” Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Brandon Simmons asked her. “I was more to the point of ‘Let’s end it,’” she said.
  • When they went into Rossi’s bedroom, the woman tearfully told the jury that he pushed her to the bed, held her down and “forced me to have sex with him.” She was afraid of him and froze.
  • When she left his home, she decided never to see him again. Rossi did communicate with her afterward, she told the jury. She changed her phone number later that week because she was trying to “wean him off of talking to me.”
  • “I was a little bit more of a timid person back then, and so it was harder for me to stand up for myself,” she said. Still, she testified that she exchanged some emails, but she never saw him in person again. The woman said she sold her engagement ring to someone else but had to pay for both rings. A few weeks later, she took him to small claims court. “As soon as that happened, he started harassing me and sent me a [cease-and-desist],” she testified.
  • She dropped the small claims court proceeding, the woman testified. She told the jury that she had told her parents that she had been assaulted, but her father made a “rude comment and dismissed me.” The woman admitted she did not go to the police because of her parents’ reaction.
  • She testified she never spoke to Rossi again. But in 2022, she was “doomscrolling” on her phone when she saw a news item about Rossi in Utah County. She texted a friend who helped her reach out to the authorities.
  • Under cross-examination by Rossi’s defense attorney, the woman acknowledged she had never experienced any type of physical abuse from Rossi before their argument and the alleged rape. But she insisted she had let him know the relationship was over, even though defense attorney Samantha Dugin pointed out the woman drove Rossi home.
  • MORE: Alleged victim testifies in Nicholas Rossi’s first Utah rape trial
• READ MORE: Rape trial underway for Nicholas Rossi, man accused of faking death to avoid prosecution