Nicholas Rossi, the American rapist who faked his own death and fled to Scotland in a bizarre attempt to evade justice, died in a Utah hospital on Thursday night after choosing to discontinue medical treatment. He was 38.
The Utah Department of Corrections said Rossi was pronounced dead at 20:32 on June 25, 2026, from complications of an existing medical condition after he “chose to remove himself from the care that was being provided”. Officials said they had notified his family and his victims.
“Rapist Nicholas Rossi, who faked his death and fled to Scotland, dies in US hospital after ending medical treatment.”
Rossi was serving a sentence of 10 years to life for raping two women in Utah in 2008, convictions secured after separate trials in August and September 2024. But his path to prison was anything but straightforward.
In 2020, as investigators began closing in, an online obituary announced that Rossi – born Nicholas Alahverdian in Rhode Island in 1987 – had died of late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The death was a fabrication. In reality, he had fled to Ireland and then to Britain, where he met a woman in Bristol, married her in early 2020, and moved to Glasgow under the alias Arthur Knight, claiming to be an Irish-born orphan.
His ruse unraveled in December 2021 when staff at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, where he was being treated for Covid-19, recognised his distinctive tattoos from an Interpol wanted notice. Despite his protests that he was Arthur Knight – a man who had never been to America – a Scottish judge ruled in November 2022 that he was indeed Rossi, and he was extradited to the US in January 2024.
Throughout extradition hearings at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Rossi arrived in an electric wheelchair, wearing an oxygen mask, hat, and three-piece suit. He insisted his tattoos were applied while he lay unconscious in hospital to frame him, and claimed a corrupt NHS worker named Patrick had stolen his fingerprints. The court was unmoved.
One victim, who gave evidence, was praised for her “courage in confronting [Rossi] years after the attack took place.” She said: “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 told the court Rossi had left a “trail of fear, pain and destruction” behind him.