Nicholas Rossi: Fugitive in US court as rape case goes ahead

A man extradited from Scotland to the US after attempting to fake his own death has appeared in court to be told a rape case against him will proceed to the next stage.

Nicholas Rossi spent more than two years resisting attempts by the American authorities to have him sent back to face two separate rape allegations in Utah.

Mr Rossi, 36, claimed to be an Irish orphan called Arthur Knight who was the victim of mistaken identity.

In November last year a sheriff in Edinburgh ruled his extradition could go ahead saying Rossi was "as dishonest and deceitful as he is evasive and manipulative".

Nicholas Rossi at court in Edinburgh in 2023

Mr Rossi was arrested under an international arrest warrant in December 2021 after being admitted to hospital in Glasgow with Covid.

He was finally returned to the US in January and appeared in person at a courtroom in Utah on Thursday afternoon.

Mr Rossi asked to be referred to as Mr Knight during a preliminary hearing in one of the cases against him.

The court heard from former Detective Derek Coats, who had been assigned to Utah's sexual assault initiative and led the investigation into a reported attack involving Mr Rossi in the city of Orem in 2008.

Mr Coats, who now works for the Utah department of corrections, said that after taking charge of the investigation in 2020 he was contacted by another woman as a result of media attention in the case.

"MS (the woman) reached out and indicated that she had a relationship with the individual on the news media," he told the court. "She knew him as Nicholas Rossi."

The court heard that Det Coates interviewed the woman in January 2022 and that she alleged that Nicholas Rossi sexually assaulted her.

At the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, Judge Barry Lawrence ruled there was probable cause to believe the facts presented by the prosecutor in the case.

He scheduled an arraignment hearing for mid-October.

Mr Rossi is also facing a separate allegation of rape in Salt Lake County.