Maybe you’ve heard about this before but I confess I hadn’t. The whole story is so bizarre that it’s hard to believe. Nicholas Rossi aka Nicholas Alahverdian has been on the run from US authorities since 2020. Rossi was convicted of sexual assault in 2008. He later became an activist and critic of Rhode Island’s DCFS, who claimed he’d been abused while part of the system. But his story took a twist in 2020 when local news reports said he’d been diagnosed with lymphoma. Just two months later the Associated Press reported he was dead:

Alahverdian died Saturday after losing a battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, according to his obituary.

“He lived a warrior’s life,” the obituary reads. “A fighter in spirit, but a peacemaker in practice. He overcame significant abuse and harmful living conditions.”

But it turns out Rossi wasn’t dead at all. He’d faked his death because the FBI was looking into allegations of fraud.

The agency was looking into a fraud complaint filed against Alahverdian in Ohio, says Pine.

His former foster mother in Ohio, Sharon Lane, tells The Journal that Alahverdian had fraudulently obtained 22 credit cards and loans under her husband’s name and ran up debts totaling almost $200,000.

As word began circulating that he might still be alive, his “widow” wrote an outraged letter defending the cancer story. She claimed he was cremated and buried at sea.

Alahverdian’s presumptive widow says all the speculation is disgraceful.

In a five-page email to The Journal she said, “Unless my husband was cloned and died in my arms and faked cancer diagnosis, treatment and heart disease/heart attacks for months before that, he passed away. In my arms.”…

His widow said her husband had been cremated and his remains scattered at sea.

Rossi’s death was timely for another reason. He’d been accused of raping an ex-girlfriend in 2008. The rape kit found a DNA match to Rossi and shortly after his “death” an arrest warrant was issued in that case.

Rossi was eventually arrested in December of 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland after being admitted to a hospital with COVID. He was living under a new name in Scotland, Arthur Knight.

He was arrested at the hospital by Police Scotland on 13 December on behalf of colleagues in Utah…

Utah county attorney, David Leavitt, told BBC Scotland: “We will now have to go through the process of proving in a Scottish court that Arthur Knight is Nicholas Rossi. That will be a process that will take some time but it’s one we will willingly go through because our victim in Utah has been suffering now for all these 13 years.

“I have no idea what he was doing in Scotland prior to lying in a hospital bed with Covid.”

In a court hearing in January 2022, Rossi continued to claim he was Arthur Knight. He continued to miss subsequent hearing dates, once saying he was sick in bed. In June he claimed he had COVID and couldn’t attend. He also refused to give his fingerprints and DNA.

He failed to attend the latest hearing of his extradition case on Thursday for the third time. His wife emailed the court to say he has Covid.

The sheriff was told that police attended the 34-year-old’s home in Glasgow and asked him to voluntarily give his DNA and fingerprints, which he refused. He has now been ordered by the court to provide these samples.

The sheriff asked for him to attend another hearing next Thursday and bring with him a passport, a birth certificate or anything else that can provide his identity.

That dodge didn’t work for long. In July he was arrested again for threatening NHS staff. His fingerprints were taken and were confirmed to be those of Nicholas Rossi.

A court has heard fingerprints taken from a man claiming to be a mistaken victim of extradition proceedings show he is US fugitive Nicholas Rossi.

The man appeared at Glasgow Sheriff Court on Thursday using the name Arthur Knight and denied threatening hospital staff two days earlier.

The court heard he had behaved like a “raging” bull and left a doctor “trembling with fear”.

The accused man appeared from custody in a wheelchair wearing an oxygen mask.

In addition to the fingerprints, he also has tattoos that match those of Nicholas Rossi. As for the oxygen mask, that has become a part of his disguise as Arthur Knight but doctors say he doesn’t need it. In fact, he was convicted of menacing doctors after leaping out of bed and charging at them when they told him he was going to be discharged.

So the effort to extradite him back to the US continues to drag on but last Friday night Dateline aired an interview with him in which he continued to claim he was Arthur Knight and dramatically tried to prove he was too ill to walk by standing up and falling over. This really is some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen.

This entire story is so wild (https://t.co/6Dx49Xd7Kd) but this is the funniest god damn thing I've ever seen. pic.twitter.com/XbGepzJv4A

— Boner Vivant (@Doug_Tilley) April 24, 2023

It’s hilarious but of course this creep is doing this to avoid facing justice for (an alleged) rape. I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t announced he’s a trans woman in a last ditch effort to further delay the process.

The trailer for the Dateline segment is here. The full episode isn’t available on YouTube but I did find this 24-minute-long report from a Scottish show called Scotland Tonight which also includes an interview with Rossi denying his identity.