Man accused of faking his death to avoid rape charges is found guilty of sexual assault in Utah

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Rhode Island man accused of faking his death and fleeing the United States to evade rape charges was found guilty late Wednesday of sexually assaulting a former girlfriend in his first of two Utah trials.

An eight-person jury in Salt Lake County found Nicholas Rossi guilty of a 2008 rape after a three-day trial in which his accuser and her parents took the stand. Rossi, 38, declined to testify on his own behalf. He will be sentenced on Oct. 20 and is set to stand trial in September on another rape charge in Utah County.

First-degree felony rape carries a punishment in Utah of five years to life in prison, said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill.

“We are grateful to the survivor in this case for her willingness to come forward, years after this attack took place,” Gill said in a statement. “It took courage and bravery to take the stand and confront her attacker to hold him accountable.”

Utah authorities began searching for Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, when he was identified through a decade-old DNA rape kit in 2018. He was among thousands of rape suspects identified and later charged when Utah made a push to clear its rape kit backlog.

Months after he was charged in Utah County, an online obituary claimed Rossi died on Feb. 29, 2020, of late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma. But police in his home state of Rhode Island, along with his former lawyer and a former foster family, cast doubt on whether he was dead.

He was arrested in Scotland the following year while receiving treatment for COVID-19 after hospital staff recognized his distinctive tattoos from an Interpol notice.

Extradited to Utah in January 2024, Rossi insisted he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who was being framed. Investigators say they identified at least a dozen aliases Rossi used over the years to evade capture.

He appeared in court this week in a wheelchair, wearing a suit and tie and using an oxygen tank.

Rossi's public defender denied the rape claim and urged jurors not to read too much into his move overseas years later.

“You’re allowed to move, you're allowed to go somewhere else, you’re allowed to have a different name,” attorney Samantha Dugan said. She declined further comment following the verdict.

Prosecutors painted a picture of an intelligent man who used his charm to take advantage of a vulnerable young woman. The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly.

The woman was living with her parents and recovering from a traumatic brain injury when she responded to a personal ad Rossi posted on Craigslist. They began dating and were engaged within about two weeks.

She testified Rossi asked her to pay for dates and car repairs, lend him $1,000 so he wouldn’t be evicted, and take on debt to buy their engagement rings. He grew hostile soon after their engagement and raped her in his bedroom one night after she drove him home, she said.

Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Brandon Simmons told jurors Wednesday that the woman did not consent. “This is not romantic, this is not her mistaking things.”

The woman said her parents' dismissive comments convinced her not to go to the police. She came forward a decade later after seeing him in the news and learning he was accused of another rape from the same year.

Rossi's lawyers said the woman built up years of resentment after he made her foot the bill for everything in their monthlong relationship. They argued she accused him of rape to get back at him years later when he was getting media attention, and sought to undermine her credibility with jurors.

Rossi's accuser in the Utah County case, who testified at this week's trial, is also a former girlfriend. She went to police at the time of that alleged rape. He is accused of attacking her at his apartment in Orem in September 2008 after she came over to collect money she said he stole from her to buy a computer.

When police initially interviewed Rossi, he claimed she raped him and threatened to have him killed.

Rossi grew up in foster homes in Rhode Island and returned there before allegedly faking his death. He was previously wanted in the state for failing to register as a sex offender. The FBI says he faces fraud charges in Ohio, where he was convicted of sex-related charges in 2008.

FILE- Nicholas Rossi leaves Edinburgh Sheriff and Justice of the Peace Court during his extradition hearing in Edinburgh, Scotland, June 30, 2023. (Andrew Milligan/PA via AP, File)

In this image made from pool video footage, Nicholas Rossi accused of faking his death and fleeing to Europe to avoid rape charges, appears at a jury trial in Salt Lake City, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. (Firecrest Films via AP, Pool)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An ailing astronaut returned to Earth with three others on Thursday, ending their space station mission more than a month early in NASA’s first medical evacuation.

SpaceX guided the capsule to a middle-of-the-night splashdown in the Pacific near San Diego, less than 11 hours after the astronauts exited the International Space Station.

“It’s so good to be home,” said NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, the capsule commander.

It was an unexpected finish to a mission that began in August and left the orbiting lab with only one American and two Russians on board. NASA and SpaceX said they would try to move up the launch of a fresh crew of four; liftoff is currently targeted for mid-February.

Cardman and NASA’s Mike Fincke were joined on the return by Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov. Officials have refused to identify the astronaut who had the health problem or explain what happened, citing medical privacy.

While the astronaut was stable in orbit, NASA wanted them back on Earth as soon as possible to receive proper care and diagnostic testing. The entry and splashdown required no special changes or accommodations, officials said, and the recovery ship had its usual allotment of medical experts on board. It was not immediately known when the astronauts would fly from California to their home base in Houston. Platonov’s return to Moscow was also unclear.

NASA stressed repeatedly over the past week that this was not an emergency. The astronaut fell sick or was injured on Jan. 7, prompting NASA to call off the next day’s spacewalk by Cardman and Fincke, and ultimately resulting in the early return. It was the first time NASA cut short a spaceflight for medical reasons. The Russians had done so decades ago.

The space station has gotten by with three astronauts before, sometimes even with just two. NASA said it will be unable to perform a spacewalk, even for an emergency, until the arrival of the next crew, which has two Americans, one French and one Russian astronaut.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

This screengrab from video provided by NASA TV shows the SpaceX Dragon departing from the International Space Station shortly after undocking with four NASA Crew-11 members inside on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This photo provided by NASA shows clockwise from bottom left are, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui gathering for a crew portrait wearing their Dragon pressure suits during a suit verification check inside the International Space Station’s Kibo laboratory module, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This screengrab from video provided by NASA shows recovery vessels approaching the NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 capsule to evacuate one of the crew members after they re-entered the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This screengrab from video provided by NASA shows the NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 members re entering the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This screengrab from video provided by NASA shows the NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 members re entering the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)