Alleged rapist accused of faking own death can be extradited to US: sheriff

An alleged rapist accused of faking his own death and living under a false identity abroad can be extradited from Scotland to the US, officials ruled Wednesday.

The 35-year-old man believed to be fugitive Nicholas Rossi — who also used the last name Alahverdian — was “as dishonest and deceitful as he is evasive and manipulative” and should face charges in his home country, Edinburgh Sheriff Norman McFadyen said, according to the BBC.

The decision will now appear before the Scottish ministers.

Rossi, who now claims to be an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight, is a sex offender and was facing criminal charges in both Utah and Ohio when he supposedly died from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in February 2020.

He was found in December 2021 at a hospital in Glasgow, where he was on a ventilator for COVID-19, the Providence Journal reported at the time.

Hospital staffers were unaware of Rossi’s true identity until authorities turned up at the facility and arrested him, the Scottish Sun said.

Rossi appeared before Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Wednesday via video link.

He was hunched over in a wheelchair and hid his face before shouting that the sheriff was “a disgrace to justice,” the BBC said.

The outburst prompted the clerk to cut off Rossi’s video connection.

When the proceedings resumed, McFadyen said Rossi’s bizarre behavior “undoubtedly complicated and extended what is ultimately a straightforward case.”

“It follows that I must send the case of the requested person Nicholas Rossi to the Scottish ministers for their decision whether he is to be extradited,” the official ruled.

Last fall, officials determined that the man claiming to be Arthur Knight was Rossi after they photographed his tattoos and matched his fingerprints through the National Crime Agency, SkyNews said.

During the bizarre identity hearing in Edinburgh, Rossi even called upon his wife, Miranda Knight, who claimed she had no idea who Nicholas Rossi was.

Rossi, however, somewhat gave himself away when his accent kept changing in public.

Even more bizarrely, HMP Edinburgh’s physician testified that Rossi had “no medical need” for a wheelchair, even though he insisted on using both that and an oxygen mask, per SkyNews.

Rossi is wanted in Utah for allegedly raping his 21-year-old ex-girlfriend in her apartment in 2008.

DNA from the attack was not tested until 2017 — and the material also matched an assault in Ohio.

In addition to the sex crimes, Rossi faces fraud charges in Ohio for supposedly opening credit cards in his foster father’s name and amassing over $200,000 in debt.

He is wanted in Rhode Island, where he was previously active in local politics and criticized the child welfare system, for failing to register as a sex offender.

Rossi’s ex-wife, Kathryn Heckendorn, told the BBC that she married him in Dayton, Ohio, in 2015, just a few months after they met.

“It was the first day he first hit me, right after we were married,” she recalled.

Rossi, she continued, was controlling, manipulative and often physically abusive.

She said she did not know at the time that Rossi was a registered sex offender who, in 2008, was found guilty of sexual imposition and public indecency.

Heckendorn recorded one instance of abuse, which later helped her secure a divorce and rebuild her life.

“It angers me first that he keeps pulling all these stunts — he was doing the same thing with our divorce,” she told the outlet of the ongoing proceedings in Scotland.

“Always being ill or having some legal issue. Some excuse to postpone, delay, continue the hearing, the same exact stuff.

“The only one he’s got convinced is himself.”