Nicholas Rossi, accused of faking his death and fleeing the US to avoid rape charges, will stand trial in Utah, judge rules

A man who is accused fake his own death and fled from the USA to Avoiding rape charges will go to trial, a judge in Utah decided on Thursday.

District Judge Barry Lawrence ruled during Nicholas Rossi's preliminary hearing that prosecutors had presented enough evidence to warrant a jury trial, CBS affiliate KUTV reported. Rossi is scheduled to appear in court again on Oct. 17 to face charges and negotiate bail, the station 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, real name Nicholas Alahverdianhas used several aliases and said he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who had never set foot on American soil and was 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 he was recognized while being treated for COVID-19 in a Glasgow hospital. He lost a Extradition complaint in the country 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.

Since his arrest in Scotland, he has given a series of bizarre television interviews, insisting he is an innocent Irishman. In a viral interview with Scottish broadcaster STV News in 2023, he called the claim that he was an American wanted for rape “a vicious lie.”

In another interview On “Dateline,” Rossi sat next to his wife and insisted that he had been mistaken for identity.

“We were once a normal family, but thanks to the media, our lives have been interrupted,” he said, gasping for air into an oxygen mask. “And we would like privacy and I would like to be a normal husband again, but I can't because I can't breathe and I can't walk.”

contributed to this report.