Nicholas Rossi, a man convicted of raping two women in Utah in 2008, has been jailed for five years to life. His conviction came after two separate trials in 2024.
Rossi had claimed he was the victim of mistaken identity, insisting he was an Irish-born orphan named Arthur Knight who had never been to the US. However, Utah authorities had identified him through a decade-old DNA rape kit in 2018, leading to a search for him.
After being charged, Rossi faked his own death in 2020, posting an online obituary claiming he had died of late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma. During this time, he married a woman he met in Bristol and moved to Glasgow with her.
Rossi was finally caught in 2021 when hospital staff in Glasgow recognized him from a police 'wanted' notice while he was receiving treatment for Covid. Despite his claims of mistaken identity, an Edinburgh court determined he was indeed Rossi, and an extradition warrant was signed.
He was extradited to the US in January 2024. One of the victims who gave evidence in his trial praised her own 'courage in confronting [Rossi] years after the attack took place'. She described the impact of his actions, stating that Rossi had left a 'trail of fear, pain and destruction' behind him.
The victim emphasized that her actions were 'not a plea for vengeance' but rather 'a plea for safety and accountability, for recognition of the damage that will never fully heal'.
