Rossi was extradited back to the United States last year to face trial for two rape cases in Utah for incidents that reportedly occurred in 2008. He was arrested by Scottish authorities after he was hospitalized with COVID, and they used his tattoos to determine he was a U.S. fugitive.
Rossi, who also has gone by the name Nicholas Alahverdian, also was a suspect in a fraud investigation in 2016 that originally was investigated by the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office. Rossi’s foster parents reported to law enforcement that someone had opened up financial accounts in his foster father’s name without his permission, and officials identified Rossi as a suspect in the case.
Rossi lived in a home in Harrison Twp. that belonged to his foster parents when the unauthorized accounts were created.
After a jury returned a guilty verdict on Wednesday night in the Utah rape case, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said it took courage and bravery for the victim to take the stand and confront Rossi and hold him accountable.
“We are grateful to the survivor in this case for her willingness to come forward, years after this attack took place,” Gill said. “We appreciate her patience as we worked to bring the defendant back to Salt Lake County so that this trial could take place and she could get justice.”
Rossi, 38, was found guilty of a first degree felony rape charge Wednesday evening in Utah’s Third District Court, following a three-day trial.
The victim in the case testified that she and Rossi got engaged in the fall of 2008, after dating for only a couple of weeks. She said Rossi seemed smart and loving at first, but he became controlling soon after their engagement.
The victim said she decided to end their relationship after just a couple of weeks of being engaged, but Rossi reacted with anger and he held her down and raped her at his home. Another woman who dated Rossi around that time also testified in court this week that he sexually assaulted her. Rossi is scheduled to go to trial this fall for a separate felony rape charge. He chose not to testify in court this week.
Dayton allegations
Rossi lived in Dayton and attended Sinclair College in early 2008. Rossi in January of that year sexually assaulted a 19-year-old female student in a stairwell in one of the school buildings on campus. Rossi was convicted of misdemeanor charges of sexual imposition and public indecency in Dayton Municipal Court. He was required to register as a sex offender after his conviction.
Another female Sinclair student in January 2008 told police that Rossi engaged in unwanted sexual conduct at his apartment in Dayton’s Eastern Hills neighborhood. The woman decided not to pursue criminal charges.
Rossi moved to Utah later in 2008. After living in Utah, Rossi moved to the East Coast, where he was investigated by police for a potential kidnapping and he was convicted of assaulting a woman he married.
Rossi later came back to the Dayton area, where he said he was in charge of a group he called the Community Progress Institute. The institute claimed its mission was to “foster a city renaissance.”
In fall 2015, Montgomery County sheriff’s deputies arrested Rossi for domestic violence in Harrison Twp., an incident report states. Rossi and his then-wife got married after just a couple of months of dating, and she accused him of restraining her and locking her in a bathroom.
In fall 2016, sheriff’s deputies spoke to Rossi’s foster parents who said that about 10 credit and financial accounts were opened under their names without his knowledge or consent, an incident report states. More than $177,000 worth of charges had been racked up, according to a Salt Lake City police report.
Some of the accounts carried the foster parents’ names and the names of the Community Progress Institute and the Alahverdian Corp.
Utah case
Rossi was charged with rape in Utah after authorities in 2018 reviewed old sexual assault cases where the original sexual assault kits had not been tested. One of those kits, related to a rape case in 2008, was tested and identified Rossi as a suspect.
That case is supposed to go to trial this fall.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Andy Sexton, a former city of Dayton prosecutor, told this news outlet that Rossi voluntarily provided a DNA sample to a probation officer in Dayton after an arrest in 2012, even though he was not required to by law. Sexton said he came up with the idea to just ask for a sample, and Rossi said OK, and that evidence helped Utah authorities connect him to the rape case.
The victim from the case that led to a conviction on Wednesday did not originally report the assault to police. She came forward later after she saw Rossi arrested on the news.
Fleeing to Ireland, faked death
A 2020 court declaration by Derek Coats, an agent with the Utah Department of Public Safety, says that the FBI in Ohio had an indictment and a warrant for the arrest of Rossi related to a fraud investigation.
An FBI agent had been in contact with Rossi by phone and email as recently as December 2019, but he was living in Ireland because he believed the country had a non-extradition treaty with the U.S., the declaration states.
In early 2020, an online obituary was published for Nicholas Alahverdian that said he died of cancer and he was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea. Emails claiming to be from the Alahverdian Foundation also were sent out saying Rossi had died.
Rossi’s online obit says, “His last words were ‘fear not and run toward the bliss of the sun.’ At the time of his passing, the room was filled with the sounds of the end credits for the 1997 film ‘Contact’ by composer Alan Silvestri, a film and score which held special meaning for Mr. Alahverdian.”
Rossi claimed to be an Irish orphan when he was arrested in the U.K. But last year, he finally admitted in court under oath his true identity.
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