A Rhode Island man who faked his death to avoid U.S. rape charges has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a former girlfriend, marking the first of two trials in Utah.
A Salt Lake County jury on Wednesday convicted 38-year-old Nicholas Rossi of a 2008 rape following a three-day trial during which the victim and her parents testified. Rossi declined to testify in his defense. He is scheduled for sentencing on October 20 and faces another rape trial in September in Utah County.
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Rossi had reportedly claimed he died on February 29, 2020, from late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma. However, police, a former lawyer, and a former foster family in Rhode Island raised doubts about his death. He was arrested in Scotland in 2021 while receiving COVID-19 treatment, after hospital staff recognized his tattoos from an Interpol notice.
Rossi was extradited to Utah in January 2024 following a failed appeal in which he alleged he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who was being framed.
Source: Agency