Man accused of faking his death and fleeing the US to avoid rape charges will go on trial, Utah judge rules

SALT LAKE CITY — A man accused of faking his own death and fleeing the U.S. to avoid rape charges will go on trial, a Utah judge ruled Thursday.

District Judge Barry Lawrence ruled during Nicholas Rossi's preliminary hearing that prosecutors had presented enough evidence to warrant a jury trial, KTVX-TV reported.

Prosecutors allege Rossi, 37, raped a 26-year-old ex-girlfriend in 2008 after an argument in Salt Lake County. In a separate case, he is accused of raping a 21-year-old woman in Orem, Utah, that same year. He was not identified as a suspect for about a decade because of a backlog of DNA testing kits at the Utah State Crime Lab.

His lawyers at the Salt Lake Legal Defender Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press Thursday evening.

Rossi, whose real name is Nicholas Alahverdian, has used several aliases and said he is an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who has never set foot on American soil and who is being blamed.

The American refugee grew up in foster care in Rhode Island and had returned to the state before allegedly faking his death and fleeing the country. An obituary posted online said Rossi died of advanced non-Hodgkin lymphoma on February 29, 2020.

The authorities and his former foster family doubted his death.

Rossi was arrested in Scotland in 2021 after being recognised while receiving COVID-19 treatment at a Glasgow hospital. He lost an extradition case there in December.

Utah County court records show Rossi also faces charges of sexual abuse, harassment and possible kidnapping in Rhode Island, Ohio and Massachusetts, KTVX-TV reported.