Nicholas Rossi faces extradition to the US to answer rape charges
American man who faked his own death and fled to Scotland finally faces extradition to US on rape charges as judge rules he is NOT the fictional innocent professor named ‘Arthur Knight’ who he claimed to be
- A Scottish Court today ruled that a man was US rape suspect Nicholas Rossi
- The wheelchair-bound man in court claimed to be 35-year-old ‘Arthur Knight’
- Rossi had been accused of rape and faking his death to flee Utah for Scotland
- Now two more extradition orders have been served accusing of more offences
A man who has been fighting extradition to the US has been confirmed as rape suspect Nicholas Rossi, a sheriff has said.
The 35-year-old has spent the last 11 months trying to con the Scottish courts into believing he is Arthur Knight, an orphan from Ireland, who has never been to the US.
Today, Edinburgh Sheriff Court found him to be Rossi, a man the US authorities have been seeking in relation to two rape allegations and one of sexual assault.
Rossi was first arrested in October last year after checking himself in to a hospital in Glasgow with Covid-19. It is alleged he faked his own death in the US and fled to Scotland to evade prosecution.
Medical staff and police were able to identify him by comparing his tattoos with pictures of Rossi on an Interpol red notice.
A stream of preliminary hearings then took place, which saw Rossi sack at least six lawyers and claim to have been tortured in prison.
The hearings culminated in an extraordinary identification case where he insisted his fingerprints had been meddled with and that he had been tattooed while unconscious in hospital in order to resemble Rossi.
An Edinburgh Court has ruled that this man is US rape suspect Nicholas Rossi and not an Irish orphan Arthur Knight
Speaking at the long-awaited hearing to establish Rossi’s identity, sheriff Norman McFadyen said: ‘I am ultimately satisfied on the balance of probabilities, by the evidence of fingerprint, photographic and tattoo evidence, taken together, supported by the evidence of changes of name, that Mr Knight is indeed Nicholas Rossi, the person sought for extradition by the United States.’
The sheriff said he would have been prepared to accept the fingerprint evidence alone or the headshots and photos of Rossi’s tattoos on US paperwork taken together as ‘sufficient’ for identifying the wanted man.
Sheriff Norman McFadyen dismissed Nicholas Rossi’s claim that his fingerprints were taken from him by an NHS worker called Patrick on behalf of prosecutors in the US while he was in intensive care.
He said: ‘I have no valid or coherent reason to doubt that the prints examined were those provided by the US authorities and that these are, as they assert, prints of Nicholas Rossi who is charged in their proceedings, and I reject Mr Knight’s explanation as to how his prints came to be taken while he was in hospital… as implausible and fanciful.’
On October 28, officials in the US Embassy in London issued a diplomatic notice requesting Rossi’s extradition.
The 35-year-old, who claims to be called Arthur Knight, had been fighting an extradition hearing by US authorities since he was arrested in December 2021
Rossi (pictured) is accused of faking his death from cancer in the US to avoid a sexual assault charge, before fleeing to Scotland. He now faces two further charges of rape and sexual assault
Miranda Knight, the wife of the defendant, arriving at Edinburgh Sheriff and Justice of the Peace Court today ahead of the sheriff’s decision which confirmed her husband was before the court
He is wanted in the US to face allegations that he raped a woman in Salt Lake City and sexually assaulted a second victim elsewhere.
He was arrested on December 13 last year after being admitted to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow – under the alias Arthur Knight – for urgent Covid treatment.
He was traced following a tip off from Interpol while he was on a ventilator in intensive care.
Rossi told US media in December 2019 that he had late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma and had weeks to live – before several outlets reported that he had died in February 2020, with a gushing obituary published online about him.
US authorities said Rossi goes by several aliases include Nicholas Alahverdian and Arthur Knight,
He is accused by Utah prosecutors of fleeing the US to avoid prosecution for an alleged sexual assault in 2008.
He is also said to have attacked women in the states of Rhode Island, Ohio and Massachusetts.
Advocate Paul Harvey, pictured right with advocate Gareth Reid, said the defendant’s claims not to be Rossi were ‘entirely outlandish’
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