The first of two Utah rape trials for Rhode Island conman Nicholas Alahverdian, who faked his death in 2020 as the FBI investigated a credit card fraud complaint against him, is scheduled to begin Aug. 11.
Alahverdian, 38, has been held without bail in a Utah county jail since January 2024, when authorities extradited him out of Scotland.
He had spent the three previous years there 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 judge there, who had tolerated Alahverdian’s charade during hearings on his identity, finally cleared the way for Alahverdian's return to the states, concluding he “is as dishonest and deceitful as he is evasive and manipulative.”
Alahverdian finally gave up his hoax last November while asking a Utah District Court judge for bail, concluding further lying would only hurt his chance for release. (The judge was not persuaded and denied bail.)
Why did Nick Alahverdian fake his own death?
Alahverdian explained his years of deception and frequent name changes as an effort to protect himself from “death threats” he’d received from unnamed Rhode Island politicians for his advocacy work a decade earlier for children in state care.
Alahverdian said the threats weren’t the only reason he took a one-way fight to Ireland in 2017. He was also pursuing public relations work.
By 2019, Alahverdian was also busy trying to get his name off a registered sex offenders list, which requires such offenders to keep police informed on their current address.
The FBI was investigating Alahverdian around that time for credit card fraud. His former foster father told authorities Alahverdian had spent $200,000 on cards taken out using his foster father's name and financial records.
Why is Nicholas Alahverdian on trial now?
Alahverdian had been convicted in 2008 of groping a woman at an Ohio community college. He then attempted to sue the woman for libel, and had his appeal request tossed when his key piece of supposedly new evidence was ruled a fake blog post.
Investigators says DNA from that case ties him to a rape of a 21-year-old woman in Orem, Utah, in September 2008.
The trial scheduled to begin next week involves allegations he also raped a 26-year-old Salt Lake County woman in November 2008.
No DNA ties him to that incident, investigators have said. The plaintiff came forward after recognizing Alahverdian during his international extradition case.
As in the Orem case, authorities say Alahverdian met the Salt Lake City women online. They dated briefly before the relationship sped at lightning speed to buying wedding rings.
But after a violent argument at a shopping mall – Alahverdian threatened to call the police and report that she had hit him if she didn’t let him back in her car – the two returned to his apartment where he raped her, police say.
What to expect during Nicholas Alahverdian's trial
Earlier this year prosecutors in both rape cases said they planned to call as witnesses as many as seven other women who claimed that between 2007 and 2016 Alahverdian had sexually assaulted them.
But other than the Ohio incident and the two rape cases, Alahverdian was never charged following those complaints.
His lawyers successfully argued prior to trial that allowing the additional women to testify, including three who say they were attacked in Rhode Island, would unfairly prejudice the juries in both cases.
Utah law prevents a defendant’s previous acts from being used to establish a defendant’s character.
But prosecutors in the cases argued that such evidence can be used for other purposes, including for establishing a defendant’s modus operandi and to defend against a charge Alahverdian might make that the plaintiffs in the cases fabricated their stories.
Both plaintiffs in the two rape cases are expected to testify at both trials.
Nicholas Alahverdian charged under name Nicholas Rossi
Alahverdian began spreading the word to Rhode Island media outlets in January 2020 that he had late-stage non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and was soon to die.
Six weeks later came the emails from his “foundation” that he had died, accompanied by a glowing obituary that those familiar with Alahverdian knew instantly he had written himself.
Seven months later, in September 2020, Utah County authorities issued an arrest warrant for Nicholas Rossi. (Alahverdian is charged under the last name of his stepfather, Rossi.)
Law enforcement investigators tracked him to Scotland after searching his iCloud account and bank records. He was arrested in a Scotland hospital in December 2021 when he awoke from a coma caused by COVID.
In an interesting twist, Alahverdian, who has used several different names in recent years, has appealed in recent weeks to the judge in his Salt Lake case that he now be charged under his birth name, Alahverdian.
The judge has denied the request.
Contact Tom Mooney at: [email protected]
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Trial of Nicholas Rossi, conman who faked his death, to start Aug. 11
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