A person accused of faking his personal demise and fleeing the US to keep away from sexual assault and fraud allegations was convicted of rape in Utah on Wednesday, prosecutors mentioned.
A Salt Lake County jury discovered Nicholas Alahverdian, who has been recognized and charged by authorities in Utah as Nicholas Rossi, responsible after three days of testimony. Deliberations started Wednesday.
He will probably be sentenced on October 20, Salt Lake County District Lawyer Sim Gill mentioned. He faces 5 years to life in jail.
“We’re grateful to the survivor on this case for her willingness to return ahead, years after this assault occurred,” Gill mentioned. “We respect her endurance as we labored to convey the defendant again to Salt Lake County in order that this trial may happen and he or she may get justice. It took braveness and bravado to take the stand and confront her attacker to carry him accountable.”
Alahverdian’s protection legal professional didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Wednesday night time.
Alahverdian faces a second rape trial in close by Utah County scheduled for September.
In 2022 — two years after a web based obituary acknowledged that Alahverdian died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma — Alahverdian was arrested in Scotland beneath the identify Arthur Knight.
Talking with a British accent and showing in a wheelchair, he denied that he was Alahverdian and claimed that he was an Irish orphan who had grow to be a businessman.
In his opening assertion, the prosecutor within the Salt Lake County case mentioned that Alahverdian admitted his true identification beneath oath final 12 months. He accused Alahverdian of raping a 24-year-old lady in 2008 after a whirlwind romance and engagement.
At trial, the sufferer testified that Alahverdian rapidly turned controlling and imply after she purchased their rings and lent him cash for lease. When she eliminated the ring and instructed him their relationship was over they fought and he finally assaulted her, she testified.
Alahverdian’s protection lawyer, MacKenzie Potter, in contrast the allegations to an “previous puzzle from the thrift retailer,” saying that “not all of the items are there.”
The sufferer’s story had modified over time, Potter mentioned, and it might’t be verified.
Alahverdian, who was raised in Rhode Island’s foster youth system and later turned an outspoken aide in that state’s legislature, was beforehand accused or convicted in different assault and intercourse crimes circumstances involving ladies he was in relationships with.
In a case in Massachusetts in 2010, a lady he was married to on the time instructed authorities he held her down, grabbed her neck, struck her within the face and refused to let her depart their residence following an argument over a crying child.
Alahverdian pleaded no contest to misdemeanor home assault and was sentenced to probation.
In Ohio in 2008, a lady whom Alahverdian met on MySpace accused him of sexually assaulting her whereas strolling to class at a local people school. He denied the allegation and was charged with public indecency and sexual imposition, a misdemeanor crime indicating sexual contact towards an individual’s will.
After a trial, Alahverdian was fined and ordered to register as a intercourse offender.
The second Utah case, additionally from 2008, entails a lady who mentioned they’d began relationship after they met on MySpace. An affidavit in assist of an arrest warrant reveals that she instructed authorities that she broke it off after he turned more and more aggressive and borrowed cash with out paying her again.
On Sept. 13 of that 12 months, she mentioned she went to his residence after he mentioned he’d pay her again, based on the affidavit. He as an alternative raped her, based on the doc.
A sexual assault package was accomplished the following day, authorities have mentioned, however a backlog in testing meant that Alahverdian was not recognized as a suspect till a decade later. Alahverdian has pleaded not responsible in that case.
