Man charged with faking death to escape Utah rape charges denied bail

(CN) — A man prosecutors claim changed his name, faked his own death and fled to Europe to avoid rape charges in the U.S. appeared in a Utah court Wednesday to request lower bail because he’s not only not a flight risk — his life is in danger.

With a shallow, raspy voice, Nicholas Rossi said under oath in a Provo courtroom that he moved to Europe not to escape justice, but to accept a job in public relations and to escape threats made against him and his family’s lives because of his prior work as a child welfare advocate.

He was tipped off to the threats, he said, by Raymond Hull, a member of Rhode Island’s legislature and Roberto DaSilva, the mayor of East Providence.

When pressed by state prosecutors to reveal the source of the threats, Rossi refused by saying he didn’t “want to give a mouse cheese.”

Fourth District Court Judge Derek P. Pullan closed the court to allow Rossi to reveal names.

Back on the record, Pullan denied Rossi’s request to reduce his bail to $10,000 and granted the state prosecutor’s motion to keep him in jail before his trial.

Pullan noted that Rossi is a flight risk because he fled to Europe while his foundation, the Nicholas Alahverdian Foundation, was being investigated for fraud. The judge also pointed out that when contacted by an FBI agent, Rossi said he specifically fled to Ireland because the country doesn’t have an extradition policy with the U.S.

Additionally, a eulogy was posted on the foundation’s website in 2020 stating Rossi had died and had been cremated and buried at sea with only his wife and children as witnesses, Pullan said.

“In fact, Mr. Rossi had not died, he continued to conduct his affairs in Europe," where he got a driver’s license under the name Nicholas Brown, Pullan said. Irish police found that the license had been stolen.

Instead of being on the run from assailants, state prosecutors claim Rossi was on the run from a felony rape charge in Utah connected to a 2008 assault in Orem, Utah.

Rossi’s attorney Daniel Diaz argued the detective who investigated that case declined to forward the case to the district attorney, seemingly because the victim accepted money from Rossi.

Later in Wednesday’s hearing, Rossi pleaded not guilty to felony rape charges.

Through a lengthy Interpol process, law enforcement found Rossi in a hospital in Glasgow, Scotland, due to complications from Covid-19.

“What followed is an extradition process that lasted three years during which Mr. Rossi denied emphatically being Nicholas Rossi and claimed that he was Arthur Knight,” Pullan said.

Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, also claimed he was an Irish orphan.

In January 2024, Rossi was extradited to Utah where he faces two felony rape charges.

Through accessing Rossi’s internet search history, Derek Coats, a former investigator in The Utah Department of Public Safety’s sexual assault kit initiative program, who also testified on Wednesday, said that Rossi had searched for phrases like “how to create a fake identity” in 2018 and searches for U.S. prison conditions as a reason to not to be extradited.

Through a search warrant, Coats said he found Rossi’s prior conviction for sexual imposition and indecency charges, which connected him to his many different aliases.

During the proceedings, Rossi referred to himself as Arthur Knight. He claimed he changed his name in Scotland after marrying and taking his wife’s surname.

He previously changed his name from Rossi to Alahverdian, the name he was born with, to honor his Armenian heritage, he said.

Rossi grew up in Rhode Island. He was previously a vocal critic of the state’s Department of Children, Youth and Families. He testified during a legislative hearing that he was sexually abused in the state’s foster care system. In 2011 he sued the department and a number of other defendants. In 2013, the case settled in exchange for the state waiving a more than $200,000 lien against Rossi for medical care while he was in state custody.