Nicholas Rossi: How the masks slipped throughout US fugitive’s courtroom saga

I first met Nicholas Rossi – or Arthur Knight, as he insisted on being known as – in February 2022 in a hall at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.

He was there to struggle extradition to the US, the place he was accused of rape.

Sitting in his electrical wheelchair, wearing a three-piece go well with and sporting a large brimmed hat, the raspy voice behind the oxygen masks was telling anybody who would hear that this was all a horrible misunderstanding.

His arms, in the meantime, have been hoovering up reporters’ enterprise playing cards.

Rossi’s departure that day set the tone for what grew to become a well-known scene – a slapstick efficiency in entrance of the cameras throughout which he tipped his wheelchair onto the pavement whereas attempting to manoeuvre right into a ready taxi.

Later that night an unknown quantity flashed up on my cell phone and I heard that very same raspy voice.

“Hello Steven, it is Arthur… do you may have a minute?”

And so started an train in separating truth from fiction that continues three years later, which I’ve explored in a brand new podcast as a part of the Strange But True Crime sequence on BBC Sounds.

The identify Nicholas Rossi first got here to wider consideration in December 2021 when he was arrested on the Covid ward of a Glasgow hospital.

Staff had recognised his mugshot and distinctive tattoos from an Interpol needed discover.

The drawback for the American authorities was that the person they have been searching for to extradite swore blind he was the sufferer of mistaken identification.

He claimed he was Arthur Knight, an Irish-born orphan who had by no means been to America – and mentioned he might show it.

A few weeks after our first phone-call, “Arthur” was sitting reverse me in a BBC studio, his spouse Miranda by his facet, telling his story for the cameras.

He mentioned he grew up in care in Dublin and escaped to London as a teen. There, he offered books along with his pals at Camden market, like Del Boy from the comedy Only Fools and Horses.

Years later he married Miranda in Bristol earlier than they moved to Glasgow. He confirmed me their marriage certificates – accompanied by a particular licence from the Anglican Church, as a result of “I would not deceive the Archbishop of Canterbury”.

What he could not produce was a start certificates. Or a passport.

He was obscure about his schooldays and could not say what occurred to his previous pals.

At instances the dialog veered as wildly as his accent – from claims he survived the London Tube bombing (he bought the date flawed) to a narrative about as soon as assembly Del Boy’s sidekick Rodney.

He repeatedly denied being Nicholas Rossi, however once I requested about tattoos he mentioned he was “too drained” to indicate me his arms.

It was a surreal, unconvincing efficiency that was being watched throughout the Atlantic by loads of individuals who recognised the principle character.

“I’d know these arms wherever,” Mary Grebinski later informed me.

She’d been a university pupil in 2008 when Nicholas Rossi sexually assaulted her on the way in which to class. He was convicted and positioned on the intercourse offenders register.

In Dayton, Ohio – town the place that assault occurred – I additionally spoke to Rossi’s ex-wife.

Kathryn Heckendorn mentioned she had purchased him the pink silk pyjamas “Arthur” had been filmed carrying exterior courtroom.

Their sad marriage lasted eight months. The choose who granted their divorce in 2016 mentioned Rossi was responsible of “gross neglect of responsibility and cruelty” on account of his abusive behaviour.

Conversations like this helped fill within the blanks.

Nicholas Rossi was born Nicholas Alahverdian in 1987. Rossi was the identify of his stepfather, who on the time was Rhode Island’s premiere Engelbert Humperdinck impersonator.

As a teen he hung out in care and, years later, loved a level of native fame as a baby welfare campaigner.

When reviews of Alahverdian’s loss of life emerged in 2020, politicians paid tribute from the ground of the Rhode Island State House.

According to a web-based obituary his final phrases have been: “Fear not and run in the direction of the bliss of the solar.”

But it did not take lengthy for this deception to start unravelling.

A priest who had been requested to rearrange a memorial mass was warned by a detective to not go forward as a result of “Nicholas is not useless”.

Instead, the authorities suspected Rossi was someplace within the UK, having fled after discovering that the FBI have been investigating an alleged bank card fraud.

It was his on-line footprint that finally led police to his hospital bedside in Glasgow – satirically because the fugitive was recovering from a real near-death expertise within the form of Covid.

At one in all his early extradition hearings the sheriff commented that advancing the case should not be “rocket science”.

But the authorized course of dragged on and on – largely on account of Rossi’s antics.

There have been rambling courtroom monologues, questionable medical episodes and theatrical outbursts which have been typically directed at his personal legal professionals as a prelude to sacking them.

Sitting within the public gallery, it was hardly ever uninteresting. Rossi’s declare {that a} corrupt hospital worker known as Patrick tattooed him whereas he was in a coma was one of many extra memorable exchanges.

In the tip the sheriff’s conclusion was that the Arthur Knight charade was “implausible” and “fanciful”.

And but Rossi caught to his story – at the same time as his extradition was authorized and High Court judges refused his attraction.

He caught to his story as US Marshals bundled him onto a personal jet and as jail guards booked him into the Utah County jail.

He caught to his story in a Utah courtroom, till all of the sudden he did not.

In October final yr I tuned in to a routine bail listening to on-line when, with out warning, the luxury English persona disappeared.

Speaking in a transparent American accent he informed the choose he was born Nicholas Alahverdian earlier than his identify modified to Rossi.

As he claimed to have hidden his identification to flee “loss of life threats”, I discovered myself questioning why he’d chosen that particular second for the masks to slide.

The saga continues, however the novelty has worn off.

The intrigue and farce has been stripped away whereas the intense allegations stay.

In August, Nicholas Rossi is because of face the primary of two separate rape trials. He denies all the costs.