SALT LAKE CITY — The Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office has filed a rape charge against Nicholas Rossi, who is currently living in Scotland and was previously accused of raping another woman in Utah County.
In charges filed Wednesday in Salt Lake County, Rossi now faces one count of rape. Rossi was also charged with rape in September 2020 by the Utah County Attorney's office.
The man who officials say is Rossi has identified himself as "Arthur Knight Brown" and told FOX 13 News in March that officials have the wrong guy because he has never been to Utah.
In 2020, authorities say the same man, then known as Nicholas Alahverdian, died in Rhode Island from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He was believed to be dead until he was arrested while recovering in a COVID-19 ward in a Scotland hospital.
In new charges filed Wednesday, court documents state that Rossi dated a woman in Salt Lake County between November and December of 2008. The woman said Rossi, "seemed smart, university educated [and] interesting," but that he was also "manipulative...and he convinced her to loan him money that he did not repay."
Shortly after they began dating, Rossi convinced the woman they should get married and they got wedding rings, documents explain.
After an argument at the Gateway mall in December 2008, court documents state the woman locked herself in her car and Rossi screamed and hit the car until she let him in.
Rossi then refused to get out of her car and asked the woman to come inside his home, where he shut her in his bedroom and "would not allow her to leave," charging documents explain.
Rossi then threw the woman onto the bed and held her down while he raped her, court documents state.
The Salt Lake County DA's Office said they are working with the Utah County Attorney's Office and the U.S. Attorney on the extradition of Nicholas Rossi from Scotland.
"The presumption of innocence applies, Nicholas Rossi remains innocent until proven guilty in a court of law," a press release stated.
