Nicholas Rossi Faces Extradition to the US Over Rape Allegations

Scotland's justice secretary, Angela Constance, has given the green light for the extradition of Nicholas Rossi, an American fugitive, to proceed. Last week, Constance signed the extradition order following a court ruling in August that found no legal obstacles to sending Rossi back to the United States to face rape charges. Rossi, a convicted sex offender originally from Rhode Island, was apprehended in December 2021 on the Covid ward of a Glasgow hospital. Since his arrest, the 36-year-old has maintained that he is a victim of mistaken identity, claiming to be an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight. However, Sheriff Norman McFadyen rejected his claims and affirmed his true identity as Nicholas Rossi. US authorities have stated that Rossi used various aliases, including Nicholas Alahverdian. Sheriff McFadyen, in his extradition ruling, described Rossi as deceitful, evasive, and manipulative. Rossi has two weeks to appeal the justice secretary's decision before being sent to Utah. In a separate matter, detectives in Essex are seeking to interview Rossi regarding a rape allegation from 2017. Interestingly, in December 2019, Rossi publicly declared that he was terminally ill with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and Rhode Island news outlets reported his death in February 2020. However, Rossi resurfaced less than two years later at a Glasgow hospital – the same hospital where he was being treated for Covid-19 when he was arrested. Hospital staff identified Rossi by his distinctive arm tattoos.