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Nick Alahverdian’s sensational story coming to Peacock streaming. Here’s what to know.
Rhode Island native Nicholas Alahverdian facts
The man in Scotland who calls himself Arthur Knight denies being the American fugitive Nick Alahverdian.
On a mild February day in 2020, a short, 32-year-old Rhode Islander sporting a black top hat pressed down over his ears escorted his newest bride from a village church in Bristol, England, then paused with her beside the stones of the dead – fittingly enough, it now seems – for wedding photos.
Nick Alahverdian had been spending time recently erasing all likenesses of himself on the internet. But there was no avoiding these photographs. It would look too odd. And there was already plenty of oddness about this picture: a groom with no family or friends present. His new brother–in-law filled in as best man.
So, Alahverdian, a man of numerous aliases, police would later say, smiled as the bride’s few guests and family members tossed paper hearts into the air. The hearts fluttered like butterflies over the newlyweds, some settling in the bouquet of purple and yellow flowers held by Alahverdian’s third (at least) wife, Miranda.
Life seemed to be falling neatly into place. And seven days later, Alahverdian, with one keystroke, would finalize the deception he’d been arranging back in Rhode Island for weeks.
His death.
Nick Alahverdian/Nicholas Rossi on trial for rape in Utah
Things did not work out as planned.
On Friday, a day after his 37th birthday, Alahverdian was scheduled to appear remotely in a Utah courtroom from the prison where he’s being held without bail on two 2008 rape charges.
His pre-trial court appearances have been the latest snippets in a media-grabbing drama that began with him faking his death to escape an FBI fraud investigation, then masquerading as someone else in Scotland to (unsuccessfully) fight his extradition. Now, he’s carrying on his charade back across an ocean.
He insists, still, that he is Arthur Knight, a onetime Irish orphan turned English academic and a victim of a “monstrous case of mistaken identity.”
More: Dive deeper into Nick Alahverdian’s story with these podcasts and documentaries
Nick Alahverdian/Nicholas Rossi’s story featured in new docuseries on Peacock
As his real-life rape prosecutions move closer to trial, the entire Alahverdian saga up to this point is the subject of a four-part docuseries, which begins streaming in the United States this week on NBCUniversal’s Peacock.
The docuseries, titled: “Rossi: A Fugitive Faking Death,” is available starting Tuesday, an NBC spokesman confirmed.
The docuseries uses the name Rossi to identify its main character, which is the surname of Alahverdian’s stepfather and the name he’s charged under in Utah.
But Alahverdian reverted to using the last name of his biological father in 2011, when, as a former child welfare reform advocate, he filed suit against the state Department of Children, Youth and Families over his placement in out-of-state behavioral treatment centers.
The docuseries, which The Providence Journal participated in, was produced by Five Mile Films, of Bristol, England, and is being distributed by BBC Studios.
In January 2020, with the FBI looking into allegations that he committed $200,000 of credit card fraud in the name of his foster father, Alahverdian spread the lie among Rhode Island media outlets that he was dying of cancer. Then, days after his marriage in England, he sent out a press release of the demise of this “warrior” for children.
Then came the emails and phone calls to reporters from his “widow” about two memorial services and her insistence that they be covered. Neither service happened, because investigators had told the church leaders that they suspected Alahverdian was still alive.
American law enforcement officials tracked him to Scotland after searching his iCloud account and seeing photographs of him posing with Miranda at Scottish landmarks and dining at recognizable restaurants.
He was arrested on rape charges in December 2021 in a Glasgow hospital, where he was suffering from COVID.
Following his arrest, prosecutors in Utah said that at least a dozen women in four states had accused Alahverdian over the years of various crimes, including sexual and domestic assault, rape, extortion and kidnapping.
In the same year he is alleged to have raped two Utah women, he was convicted of groping a female student in a stairwell at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, and ordered to register as a sex offender.
Alahverdian then tormented his victim online and sued her claiming his conviction was “tantamount to flying planes into my twin pillars of personal success and public service.” His appeal was thrown out after a computer expert testified Alahverdian’s “new” evidence of an online posting supposedly written by his victim had been fabricated.
Viewers of the docuseries will hear several women tell of meeting Alahverdian online and being victimized, threatened and conned by him, while his current wife, Miranda — who had told The Journal she had hoped to have a child with her husband — insists authorities have the wrong man.
In August 2023, a Scottish judge finally ruled that Alahverdian was indeed the man American law enforcement officials had sought.
The judge based his identity finding on fingerprints, previous mug shots of Alahverdian and striking arm tattoos.
Alahverdian mustered a bizarre retort: that some mystery person must have inked those tattoos on him while he was comatose, and that a colluding hospital employee secretly dashed off a copy of his fingerprints to Utah prosecutors.
Said the Scottish judge of Alahverdian: He is “as dishonest and deceitful as he is evasive and manipulative.”
Contact Tom Mooney: tmooney@providencejournal.com.
New East Bay Bike Path bridges are open and ready for bikes
What’s it like to ride over the new East Bay Bike Path bridges? We sent a reporter to try them out.
I’ve long thought bike paths are among Rhode Island’s premier attractions, up there with the beaches, the mansions and the bay.
We like to knock government, but credit where it’s due, the state has done an amazing job building out an incredible pedaling network.
It’s clearly a priority.
At least I thought it was.
But they’ve just dropped the ball on what should have been a beautiful new stretch.
The plan was to finish a mile-long connector from the East Providence end of the Henderson Bridge all the way to the East Bay Bike Path.
There was even $25 million set aside to get it done.
Except WPRI recently reported that it’s now been canceled.
The main fault lies with the Trump administration, which is no friend of bike paths, and moved to kill that $25 million.
But it gets complicated, as government funding always does.
To try to rescue that money, the state DOT reportedly worked with the administration to refunnel it into a road project. Specifically, the $25 million will now be spent helping upgrade the mile-long highway between the Henderson Bridge and North Broadway in East Providence, turning it into a more pleasant boulevard.
That totally sounds worthy.
But it’s insane to throw away the bike path plan.
Especially for a particular reason in this case.
They’d already put a ton of money into starting it.
When state planners designed the new Henderson Bridge between the East Side and East Providence, they included a bike path.
It’s a beauty – well protected from traffic by a barrier, a great asset for safely riding over the Seekonk River.
The plan was to continue it another mile or so along East Providence’s Waterfront Drive, ultimately connecting with the East Bay Bike Path, which runs all the way to Bristol. Which, by the way, is one of the nicest bike paths you’ll find anywhere.
But alas, that connector plan has been canceled.
So the expensive stretch over the Henderson Bridge to East Providence is now a bike path to nowhere. Once the bridge ends, the path on it continues a few hundred yards or so and then, just … ends.
Too bad.
We were so close.
Most of the stories on the issue have been about the complex negotiation to rescue the $25 million by rerouting it to that nearby highway-to-boulevard project. But I don’t want to get lost in the weeds of that bureaucratic process here because it loses sight of the heart of this story.
Which is that an amazing new addition to one of the nation’s best state bike path systems has just been scrapped.
You can knock the Rhode Island government for blowing a lot of things.
The PawSox.
The Washington Bridge.
But they’ve done great with bike paths.
And especially, linking many of them together.
Example: not too many years ago, Providence bikers had to risk dicey traffic on the East Side to get to the more pleasant paths in India Point Park and on the 195 bridge to the East Bay Path.
But the state fixed that by adding an amazing connector that starts behind the Salvation Army building and beautifully winds along the water of the Seekonk River for a mile or so.
That makes a huge difference – and no doubt has avoided some bike-car accidents.
We were close to a comparable stretch on the other side of the river – that’s what the $25 million would have done.
But it’s now apparently dead.
Online commenters aren’t happy about it.
On a Reddit string, “Toadscoper” accused the state of being “complicit” with the feds in rerouting the money from bikes to cars.
And there was this fascinating post from FineLobster 5322, who apparently is a disappointed planner who worked on the project: “Mind you money has already been spent on phase one so rejecting it at this point is wasting money and also against the public interest … but what do I know? I only worked on the project as an engineer … I didn’t get into this to build more highways. I do it … to give back to communities and give them more access to their environment.”
Wow. One can imagine the state planning team is devastated. That’s not a small consideration. Good people go into government to make life better in Rhode Island, and it’s a bad play to take the spirit out of the job by first assigning a great human-scale project and then, after a ton of work, trashing it.
A poster named Homosapiens simply said, “We just accept this?”
Hopefully not.
The first stretch of the path over the Henderson Bridge is done, money already sunk.
What a shame to leave that as a path to nowhere.
It doesn’t have to happen.
Between Governor McKee and our Washington delegation, there’s got to be a way to get this done.
There’s got to be.
mpatinki@providencejournal.com
WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Two people are dead and another person seriously hurt after a crash involving two vehicles on the highway in Warwick Saturday.
Rhode Island State Police said the crash happened around 1:34 p.m. on the ramp from Route 113 West to I-95 South.
According to police, a Hyundai SUV that was driving in the middle lane of the highway started to drift to the right, crossed the first lane, and then crossed onto the on-ramp lane. The car struck the guardrail twice before driving through the grass median.
The Hyundai then struck the driver’s side of a Mercedes SUV that was on the ramp, causing the Mercedes to roll over and come to a rest. The impact sent the Hyundai over the guardrail and down an embankment.
The driver of the Hyundai, a 73-year-old man, and his passenger, a 69-year-old woman, were both pronounced dead at the hospital.
A woman who was in the Mercedes was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital in critical condition.
State police said all lanes of traffic were reopened by 4:30 p.m.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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A federal judge on Friday tossed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit aiming to force Rhode Island to hand over its voter information as part of the Trump administration’s push to acquire voter data from several states.
Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy wrote that federal law does not allow the DOJ “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” siding with Rhode Island election officials. She added that the DOJ did not provide evidence to suggest that Rhode Island violated election law.
McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote that she sided with the similar decision in Oregon. That decision ruled that the DOJ was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists.
“Absent from the demand are any factual allegations suggesting that Rhode Island may be violating the list maintenance requirements,” she said in her ruling.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore (D) praised McElroy’s decision. He said in a statement that the Trump administration “seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states.”
“Today’s decision affirms our position: the United States Department of Justice has no legal right to – or need for – the personally-identifiable information in our voter file,” he said. “Voter list maintenance is a responsibility entrusted to the states, and I remain confident in the steps we take here in Rhode Island to keep our list as accurate as possible.”
The Hill reached out to the DOJ for comment.
The DOJ called for the voter lists as it investigated Rhode Island’s compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allowed Americans to register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license.
The DOJ sued at least 30 states, as well as Washington, D.C., in December demanding their respective voter data. This data includes birth dates, names and partial Social Security numbers.
At least 12 states have given or said they will give the DOJ their voter registration lists, according to a tracker operated by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The department stated after it lost a similar suit against Massachusetts earlier this month that it had “sweeping powers” to access the voter data and that, if states fail to comply, courts have a “limited, albeit vital, role” in directing election officers on behalf of the administration to produce the records. The DOJ cited the Civil Rights Act as being intended to unearth alleged election law violations.
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