Nicholas Rossi found guilty of rape charge
Nicholas Rossi, an American man who faked his death and fled to the UK to escape rape charges, has been found guilty of one of them at a court in Utah.
The 38-year-old was accused of sexually assaulting two women in the state in 2008 – one in Salt Lake County, the other in Utah County. He denied the charges.
Prosecutors are trying the cases separately.
Read more: My experience interviewing Nicholas Rossi
The Salt Lake County court heard from his accuser and her parents during the three-day trial.
Rossi declined to testify on his own behalf.
His accuser said Rossi held her down and “forced me to have sex with him”.
The court heard that she began a relationship with Rossi while recovering from a traumatic brain injury in 2008.
The woman, who can’t be named for legal reasons, said she responded to a personal ad Rossi had placed on Craigslist and the pair were engaged within about two weeks.
But the relationship soured and Rossi became “controlling and saying mean things to me”, the court heard.
She described an incident on the day she was raped in which Rossi pounded on her car and used his body to block her from pulling out of a garage.
When she eventually went into the house with him, he pushed her onto his bed, held her down and “forced me to have sex with him”, she testified.
Rossi appeared in court in a wheelchair, wearing a suit and tie and using an oxygen tank.
Despite prosecutors saying he had used at least a dozen aliases Rossi used over the years, his victim identified him from the witness stand, saying he’s “a little bit heavier, a little bit older” but mostly looks the same.
Rossi’s lawyers sought to convince the jury that her motivation in accusing him of rape was resentment over their relationship.
He will face sentencing on 20 October for this case, and is set to stand trial in September for the other rape charge in Utah County.
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In 2020, Rossi faked his own death and fled to the UK to avoid criminal charges.
After marrying Miranda Knight in Bristol, the pair moved to Glasgow where he was ultimately caught by police while he was in hospital being treated for COVID.
Medical staff at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital recognised him from his tattoos, images of which had been circulated on an Interpol red notice.
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