A man accused of faking his death and fleeing the US to avoid rape charges in Utah denied in court on Tuesday that he was a suspect and, in a distinctly British accent, called claims that he had not given his real name “complete hearsay”. .”
Nicholas Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, is accused of raping a 21-year-old woman in Orem, Utah, in 2008, prosecutors said.
He wasn’t identified as a suspect until about a decade later because of a backlog of DNA testing kits at the Utah State Crime Lab.
Rossi, 36, was extradited from Scotland earlier this month.
He identified himself Tuesday as Arthur Knight Brown and gave a date of birth in British English — listing the first day, followed by the month and year — that was different from Rossi’s, KSTU-TV reported.
He emerged from jail via video wearing an oxygen mask and pleaded not guilty at an initial court appearance. He was sometimes difficult to understand and had to lift his mask to be heard.
Nicholas Rossi, who identified himself as Arthur Knight Brown, appears in a Utah court, via video stream on January 16, 2024. AP
Salt Lake County Deputy Attorney Tamara Basuez said Rossi has not admitted his name or date of birth since he returned to Utah.
“Objection, ma’am, that’s complete hearsay,” Rossi told the judge.
Rossi was jailed without the possibility of posting bail in the Orem case. The judge set a detention hearing for January 26.
The judge said a lawyer would be appointed for Rossi. He said he had one, but the attorney had not received notice of Tuesday’s hearing.
Rossi, who grew up in a foster home in Rhode Island, made a name for himself there as a vocal critic of the state’s Department of Children, Youth and Families.
Rossi, pictured in a 2010 arrest photo from the Pawtucket Police Department, was arrested in 2021 after faking his death. Pawtucket Police Department
Four years ago, he told the media in Rhode Island that he had terminal non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and had weeks to live.
An obituary published online claimed he died on February 29, 2020.
He used at least 10 different aliases over the years, prosecutors said.
Authorities say his run from the law ended when he was arrested in December 2021 after being recognized by someone in a Glasgow, Scotland, hospital while he was being treated for COVID-19.
He insisted he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight and had never set foot on American soil.
The man said he was framed by authorities who took his fingerprints while he was in a coma so they could link him to Rossi.
He has repeatedly appeared in court in a wheelchair, using an oxygen mask and speaking with a distinct British accent.
Rossi leaves Edinburgh Sheriff and Justice of the Peace in Scotland after trial on July 12, 2023. AP
After a protracted court battle, Judge Norman McFadyen of Edinburgh Sheriff Court ruled in August that the extradition could go ahead.
The judge called Rossi “as dishonest and deceptive as he is evasive and manipulative.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
