UK Judge Confirms Arrested Man Is Rhode Island Fugitive Wanted on Rape Claim

A decide in Scotland dominated Friday {that a} man who has spent nearly a 12 months preventing extradition to the USA is Nicholas Rossi, a fugitive alleged to have faked his personal dying to flee rape allegations.

The suspect was arrested in December 2021 at a Glasgow hospital the place he was being handled for COVID-19. He denies being Rossi and says he’s an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who has by no means been to the U.S.

After seeing proof together with fingerprints and tattoos, decide Norman McFadyen informed Edinburgh Sheriff Courtroom that “I’m in the end glad on the steadiness of possibilities … that Mr. Knight is certainly Nicholas Rossi, the particular person hunted for extradition by the USA.”

The suspect has accused authorities of getting him tattooed whereas he was in a coma to resemble the wished man and of surreptitiously taking his fingerprints to border him.

McFadyen mentioned these claims of mistaken id have been “implausible” and “fanciful.”

U.S. authorities say Rossi is an alias utilized by Nicholas Alahverdian, 35, who has been charged in reference to a 2008 rape in Utah.

Authorities in Rhode Island have mentioned Alahverdian can be wished of their state for failing to register as a intercourse offender. The FBI has mentioned he additionally faces fraud costs in Ohio, the place he was convicted of sex-related costs in 2008.

Lately, Alahverdian had been an outspoken critic of Rhode Island’s Division of Youngsters, Youth and Households, testifying earlier than state lawmakers about being sexually abused and tortured whereas in foster care.

Then in 2020, he informed native media he had late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma and had weeks to stay.

An obituary revealed on-line claimed he died on Feb. 29, 2020. However by final 12 months, Rhode Island state police, Alahverdian’s former lawyer and former foster household have been publicly doubting whether or not he truly died.

Since his arrest in Scotland, the suspect has made a number of courtroom appearances and fired at the very least six attorneys — all whereas insisting he is not Nicholas Rossi.

Now that’s id has been established a full extradition listening to is scheduled to start in March. The decide refused a request for bail, saying Rossi was a flight danger.