A convicted rapist who faked his own death and fled to the United Kingdom in a failed bid to to escape justice has died while serving his sentence.
Nicholas Rossi, 38, died in a Utah hospital on Thursday night due to ‘complications of an existing medical condition after choosing to discontinue medical treatment,’ a Utah Department of Corrections spokesperson said.
It is unclear what that condition was and if Rossi decided to discontinue his care as a means of dying by suicide.
Utah Department of Corrections added that Rossi’s family had been notified of his death.
The Rhode Island native was last year sentenced to ten years behind bars for raping two women in northern Utah in 2008.
Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, was first identified as the women’s attacker in 2018 when a decade-old DNA rape kit was investigated.
But in February 2020, just months after he was charged in one of the cases, an obituary was published online claiming he had died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Rossi is seen here in an image handed out by the Utah Department of Corrections
Rossi is seen here appearing at a trial in Salt Lake City in August of 2025
The Utah Department of Corrections said that Rossi died after he ‘chose to remove himself from the case that was being provided’
In fact, he had been living in Bristol, in the south-west of England, for some time before then – but the exact date he fled the States for Britain is unclear.
He eventually ended up in Scotland, where he lived under the radar until December 2021, when he was arrested at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.
While in hospital receiving treatment for Covid, staff had recognized his distinctive tattoos and reported him to authorities.
Rossi said the wrong man had been caught, claiming he was an Irish orphan called Arthur Knight who was being framed.
But in November 2022, it was concluded he was in fact Nicholas Rossi and after a long court battle, he was eventually extradited to the US in January last year.
Rossi became known for his theatrical court appearances, where he would attempt an English accent while denying his true identity.
It eventually emerged he had used more than a dozen aliases over the years to escape detection.
This included the name Arthur Brown, which he went by when he married British woman Miranda Knight.
He is thought to have met Knight in Bristol before the couple later moved to Glasgow.
While in hospital receiving treatment for Covid in Glasgow, Scotland, staff recognized his distinctive tattoos and reported him to authorities
One of his accusers, when taking the stand last August, said Rossi left a ‘trail of fear, pain and destruction’ in his wake.
‘This is not a plea for vengeance. This is a plea for safety and accountability, for recognition of the damage that will never fully heal,’ she said.
Both women attended Rossi sentencing hearing last November, they took the stand to describe how fearful they had been of him.
‘Nicholas Rossi is not a man who simply made a mistake,’ his Utah County victim told his sentencing hearing.
‘His behavior reflects a deeper pattern, one of manipulation, deceit and narcissism.’
She spoke about her lasting anxiety and trust issues since the assault and declared that Rossi is beyond rehabilitation and should be permanently removed from society.
‘I knew I needed to come forward not for myself but for the sheer number of victims he has hurt and the threat he continues to pose to society,’ she said. ‘Justice in this case is not just about punishing one act, it’s about stopping a pattern.’
Rossi is seen here while speaking at a press conference after a hearing inside Edinburgh Sheriff and Justice of the Peace Court alongside his wife Miranda
The Salt Lake victim described the assault as life-devastating and said her ‘mind, body, family and future were torn apart in a single catastrophic moment.’
‘It stole who I was. I used to be open, trusting and joyful. I now mistrust instinctively,’ she told the court. ‘The path I expected to follow, the person I’ve wanted to be, was erased.’
Even after his convictions, Rossi declared his innocence during his sentencing, starting his remarks with a quote from conservative writer George F. Will.
‘Victimhood is the new status symbol. Everyone needs to be a victim,’ the convicted rapist told the court.
His death comes after a former youth pastor took his own life this week just days after being charged with killing his wife Bernadette in Zion National Park, in Utah, in 2006.
David Vander Meer fatally injured himself inside Las Vegas’s Clark County Detention Center on Thursday.
