How the mask slipped during the US fugitive court saga

For the first time, I met with Nicholas Rossi – or Arthur Knight, as he insisted that he be summoned – in February 2022 in a corridor in the Sheriffe Court in Edinburgh.

He was there to fight the extradition in the United States, where he was accused of rape.

He sat in his electric wheelchair, dressed in a three -piece suit and sports a wide hat with blurry, the bloated voice behind the oxygen mask told anyone who will listen to all this is a terrible misunderstanding.

In the meantime, his hands were rising on the reporters’ business cards.

The departure of Rossi that day set the tone of what turned into a familiar scene – performing slaps in front of the cameras, during which he tilted his wheelchair on the sidewalk while trying to maneuver in a waiting taxi.

Later that evening, my mobile phone flashed an unknown number and I heard the same blurred voice.

“Hi, Stephen, this is Arthur … Do you have a minute?”

And so began an exercise to separate the fact from fiction, which lasts three years later, which I studied in a new podcast as part of the strange but true criminal series of BBC Sounds.

Name Nicholas Rossi He first came to a broader attention in December 2021, when he was arrested in the Covid ward at a Glasgow hospital.

The staff had recognized his mugshot and distinctive tattoos from an Interpol Wanted notice.

The problem with the US authorities was that the person they wanted to extradite swore into the blind, that he was a victim of a wrong identity.

He claims to be Arthur Knight, an orphan, born of Ireland who has never been in America – and said he can prove it.

A few weeks after our first phone call, Arthur was sitting against me in a BBC studio, his wife Miranda next to him, telling his tale about the cameras.

He said he grew up in Dublin’s care and fled to London as a teenager. There he was selling books with his friends to Camden Market, like Del Boy from comedy only fools and horses.

Years later, he married Miranda in Bristol before moving to Glasgow. He showed me their marriage testimony – accompanied by a special license from the Church of England because “I would not lie to the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

What he could not produce was an act of birth. Or passport.

He was unclear to his students and could not say what had happened to his old friends.

Sometimes the conversation diverted as wild as his emphasis – from allegations that he survived after the bombing of the London tube (he was wrong) to the story of once encountered by Del Boy Rodin.

He repeatedly denied being Nicholas Rossi, but when I asked about tattoos, he said he was “too tired” to show me his hands.

It was a surreal, unconvincing performance that was observed through the Atlantic by many people who recognized the main character.

“I would know these hands everywhere,” Mary Grebinsky told me later.

She was a college student in 2008 when Nicholas Rossi sexually attacked her on the way to class. He was convicted and placed in the register of sexual criminals.

In Dayton, the Ohio-city, in which this attack happened, I also talked to Rossi’s ex-wife.

Catherine Hekendorn said she bought the pajamas of the red silk Arthur was filmed, carrying outside the court.

Their unhappy marriage lasted eight months. The judge, who provided his divorce in 2016, said Rossi was guilty of “grossly neglecting the obligation and cruelty” because of his violent behavior.

Talks like this helped to fill the workpieces.

Nicholas Rossi was born Nicholas Allahverdian in 1987. Rossi was the name of his stepmother, who at the time was the premiere of Rod Island Engelbert Humperdink.

As a teenager, he spent time in care and years later enjoyed a degree of local fame as a campaign for the well -being of children.

When reports of Allahverdian’s death appeared in 2020, politicians paid tribute from the floor of the State House of Rod Island.

According to an online obituary, his last words were, “Don’t be afraid and run to the bliss of the sun.”

But it didn’t take long for this scam to start unraveling.

A priest who was asked to arrange a memorial liturgy was warned by a detective not to move forward because “Nicholas is not dead.”

Instead, the authorities suspected that Rossi was somewhere in the UK after escaped after finding that the FBI was investigating a supposed credit card fraud.

It was his online print that eventually led the police to his bed at the Glasgow hospital, ironically, while the fugitive recovered from real experience near death in the form of Covid.

At one of his early hearing on extradition, the sheriff commented that the advancement of the case should not be a “rocket science”.

But the legal process is dragged on and on – to a large extent because of Rossi’s fabrications.

There were shaking monologues in the courtroom, dubious medical episodes and theatrical outbursts, which were often directed to his own lawyers as a prelude to their dismissal.

Sitting in the public gallery was rarely boring. Rossi’s claim that a corrupt hospital employee, called Patrick, tattooed him while he was in a coma, was one of the more memorable exchanges.

In the end, the sheriff’s conclusion was that Arthur Knight’s charm was “implausible” and “fantastic”.

Nevertheless, Rossi adhered to his history – even when his extradition was approved and the Supreme Court judges refused his appeal.

He adhered to his story as the American Marshals lifted him on a private jet and when the prisons guard him booked him in the Utah County Prison.

He held his story in a courtroom in Utah until he suddenly does it.

Last October, I set up a routine rumor on an online warranty when the chic English person disappeared without warning.

As he spoke with a clear American accent, he told the judge that Nicholas Alahverdian was born before his name changed in Rossi.

As he claims that he had hidden his identity to escape from “death threats”, I was thinking about why he chose that particular moment for the mask to slip away.

The saga continues, but the novelty is wearing.

The intrigue and farce are taken away while serious accusations remain.

In August, Nicholas Rossi has to face the first of two separate rape trials. He denies all fees.