Fugitive Nicholas Rossi dies in Utah while serving sentence

Nicholas Rossi, a fugitive who faked his own death and fled to Scotland to evade sexual assault charges, died in a Utah hospital on Thursday, June 25, 2026. The Utah Department of Corrections confirmed the 38-year-old died at 8:32 p.m. from complications of a chronic, degenerative medical condition after choosing to discontinue treatment.

Rossi, whose legal name was Nicholas Alahverdian, was convicted in two separate trials in 2025 for raping two women in Utah in 2008. He was sentenced to serve five years to life for each offense. His death occurred while he was serving that sentence.

His path to incarceration involved an elaborate international evasion. In February 2020, an online obituary claimed Rossi had died from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He subsequently lived in Bristol, England, before moving to Glasgow, Scotland. His flight ended in December 2021 when he was arrested at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow while being treated for COVID-19. Hospital staff recognized his distinctive tattoos from an Interpol notice and alerted authorities.

Upon his arrest, Rossi insisted it was a case of mistaken identity, claiming to be an Irish-born orphan named Arthur Knight who...