US man accused of faking his death gets at least 5 years in prison for 2008 rape Tom Mooney, Antonia Noori Farzan and Thao Nguyen, USA TODAY NETWORK October 22, 2025 at 12:58 AM 0 US man accused of faking his death gets at least 5 years in prison for 2008 rape If you or someone you know has experien...
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Tom Mooney, Antonia Noori Farzan and Thao Nguyen, USA TODAY NETWORK October 22, 2025 at 12:58 AM
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US man accused of faking his death gets at least 5 years in prison for 2008 rape
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PROVIDENCE, RI — A Utah judge on Oct. 20 sentenced a Rhode Island conman accused of faking his death and fleeing the United States to five years to life in prison for the rape of a 26-year-old Salt Lake County woman in 2008.
A jury in Salt Lake County found Nicholas Alahverdian, 38, guilty of the first-degree felony rape on Aug. 13 following a three-day trial, according to the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office. Alahverdian's conviction stems from charges that he raped his then-girlfriend, a woman whom he had met online, according to prosecutors.
Shortly after the two began dating, prosecutors said Alahverdian told the woman they should get married, and they purchased wedding rings. But Alahverdian soon became verbally and emotionally abusive, prosecutors said.
An argument at a shopping mall turned violent, and when the couple returned to Alahverdian's apartment, he refused to let the woman leave and then raped her, according to prosecutors.
The Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office filed one count of first-degree rape against the Alahverdian in July 2022. On Oct. 20, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill announced that Alahverdian was sentenced to five years to life in the case.
"While justice may have been slow, the defendant was convicted and now sentenced to prison, consistent with the harm he caused to our survivor. She can rest assured he did not escape punishment," Gill said in a statement.
Authorities have alleged that Alahverdian, who was charged under his former surname, Rossi, faked his own death in 2020 while the FBI was investigating unrelated allegations of credit card fraud, and he was later found in Scotland. He spent years fighting extradition while pretending to be a fictional Irish orphan named "Arthur Knight."
Nicholas Alahverdian to be sentenced in another rape case
Alahverdian also faces additional rape charges involving a different woman in Orem, Utah, in 2008. He is scheduled to be sentenced in November in that case.
Alahverdian was convicted of those rape charges, which involved a 21-year-old woman, in September, radio network KSL and The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
The victim told police that the two met online in 2008 and had been dating for a few weeks before breaking up over Alahverdian's growing aggressive nature, the Providence Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported. Authorities said Alahverdian raped her after luring her back to his apartment with the promise he would repay her money owed her.
Alahverdian was also previously convicted of groping a woman at an Ohio community college in 2008, according to authorities. He then attempted to sue the woman for libel and had his appeal request tossed when his new evidence was ruled a fake blog post.
Investigators said DNA from that case connected Alahverdian to the rape of the 21-year-old woman in Orem.
Nicholas Rossi case: Is he a Utah rape suspect named Nick or an Englishman named Knight? UK court could help decide
Why did Alahverdian fake his own death?
Alahverdian, who grew up in foster care and later became a critic of Rhode Island's child welfare system, has alleged that he received death threats from unnamed state politicians for his advocacy work for children in state care a decade earlier. In 2017, he took a one-way flight to Ireland to escape those alleged threats and to pursue public relations work before he eventually made his way to Scotland.
Prosecutors said Alahverdian tried to fake his own death and fled the United States to avoid being located. By 2019, Alahverdian was attempting to get his name removed from a registered sex offender list, which requires offenders to keep police informed of their current address.
In January 2020, Alahverdian started to spread the word to Rhode Island media outlets that he had late-stage non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The following month, a woman who described herself as Alahverdian's wife and a foundation under his name notified reporters that he had died.
Then, in September 2020, Utah County authorities issued an arrest warrant for Nicholas Rossi, the last name of his stepfather. Investigators later tracked him to Scotland after searching his iCloud account and bank records, and he was arrested at a hospital in December 2021 after waking up from a coma caused by COVID.
What to know. Nicholas Alahverdian extradited to US four years after faking his death.
Alahverdian was extradited to the United States in 2024
Alahverdian has been held in a Utah county jail since January 2024, when authorities extradited him from Scotland. He had spent three years in Scotland pretending to be "Arthur Knight," a former Irish orphan and victim of misidentification, in an outlandish pretense that played out before international media and an extradition court.
A Scottish judge, who had tolerated Alahverdian's claims during hearings on his identity, cleared the way for Alahverdian's return to the United States − concluding that he "is as dishonest and deceitful as he is evasive and manipulative."
Alahverdian finally gave up his hoax in November 2024 while asking a Utah District Court judge for bail. During the hearing, he alleged that his years of deception and name changes were part of an effort to protect himself from "death threats" and not because he was evading authorities.
Prosecutors argued that Alahverdian, who uses oxygen and a wheelchair, remained a flight risk despite his physical condition. The judge denied bail, noting that Alahverdian's English wife was still providing him money "that could assist him in potential flight."
Contributing: Providence Journal staff
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Nicholas Alahverdian gets at least 5 years in prison for 2008 rape
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