SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Rhode Island man who appeared to pretend his loss of life and flee the US to keep away from rape fees is scheduled to be sentenced Monday on certainly one of two rape convictions in Utah.
Nicholas Rossi, 38, faces between 5 years and life in jail when sentenced Monday by District Decide Barry Lawrence in Salt Lake Metropolis.
The sentence is the primary of two scheduled for Rossi after he was convicted individually in August and September of raping two girls in northern Utah in 2008. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 4 for the second conviction, additionally for 5 years to life in jail.
In August, jurors discovered Rossi responsible of rape after a three-day trial by which his accuser and her mother and father every took the stand. Rossi didn’t testify on his personal behalf.
It took greater than a decade from the time of the rapes to his convictions. Utah authorities started trying to find Rossi, whose authorized identify is Nicholas Alahverdian, when he was recognized in 2018 by way of a decade-old DNA rape package tied to the opposite case. He was amongst hundreds of rape suspects recognized and later charged when Utah made a push to clear its rape package backlog.
Months after he was charged in that case, an internet obituary claimed Rossi died on Feb. 29, 2020, of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. However police in his house state of Rhode Island, alongside along with his former lawyer and a former foster household, forged doubt on whether or not he was useless.
He was arrested in Scotland the next 12 months whereas receiving therapy for COVID-19. Hospital workers acknowledged his distinctive tattoos — together with the crest of Brown College inked on his shoulder, though he by no means attended — from an Interpol discover.
He was extradited to Utah in January 2024 after a protracted courtroom battle. On the time, Rossi insisted he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who was being framed. Investigators say they recognized at the least a dozen aliases Rossi used through the years to evade seize.
In his first Utah trial, Rossi’s public defender denied the rape declare and urged jurors to not learn an excessive amount of into his transfer abroad.
The sufferer had been residing along with her mother and father and recovering from a traumatic mind damage in 2008 when she responded to a private advert Rossi posted on Craigslist. They started relationship and had been engaged inside a pair weeks.
She testified that Rossi requested her to pay for dates and automobile repairs, lend him $1,000 so he wouldn’t be evicted, and tackle debt to purchase their engagement rings. He grew hostile quickly after their engagement and raped her in his bed room one night time after she drove him house, she mentioned.
She went to police years later after listening to Rossi was accused of raping one other girl in Utah across the identical time.
The sufferer in that case went to police quickly after Rossi attacked her at his house in Orem. The girl had gone there to gather cash she mentioned he stole from her to purchase a pc.
Rossi grew up in foster properties in Rhode Island and returned there earlier than he appeared to pretend his loss of life and flee the nation. He was beforehand needed within the state for failing to register as a intercourse offender. The FBI says he additionally faces fraud fees in Ohio, the place he was convicted of sex-related fees in 2008.
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Gruver reported from Ft. Collins, Colorado.
