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.