Rapist Nicholas Rossi who fled from US to Scotland to fake his own death dies in hospital
The 38-year-old died of "complications of an existing medical condition"
The American rapist Nicholas Rossi who fled from the US to Scotland after faking his own death has died in hospital.
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The 38-year-old, also known as Nicholas Alahverdian, had been serving a jail sentence in Utah for raping two women in the state in 2008 which he was convicted for last August.
The Utah Department of Corrections confirmed he died from complications from an existing medical condition at 8.32pm on Thursday, having chosen to discontinue medical treatment.
A spokesperson said: "Rossi died from complications of an existing medical condition after choosing to discontinue medical treatment.
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"This notification follows communication with Rossi's family and his victims."
He faked his own death in 2019 and fled the US but was arrested at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow in 2021, while being treated for Covid-19.
It also emerged he had used more than a dozen aliases over the years to escape detection.
Rossi was found guilty of raping two women last August after a trial.
He was first identified in 2018 after a decade-old DNA rape kit was examined but in February 2020, just months after he was charged in one of the cases, an obituary was published online claiming he had died of cancer.
It is not known when Rossi first came to the UK, but lived in Bristol for a time before coming to Scotland.
However, staff had recognised by his distinctive tattoos that he was a person the US authorities wanted to extradite.
He claimed the wrong man had been caught, claiming he was an Irish orphan called Arthur Knight who was being framed.
In November 2022, a Scottish judge ruled he was in fact Nicholas Rossi, and he was extradited to the US to face justice in 2024.
He turned up to his hearings at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in a wheelchair and oxygen tank, and claimed that he was tattooed while in a coma at the Glasgow hospital in an elaborate plot to frame him.
It also emerged he had used more than a dozen aliases over the years to escape detection.
One of his victims told the court that Rossi left a "trail of fear, pain and destruction" behind him.
"This is not a plea for vengeance. This is a plea for safety and accountability, for recognition of the damage that will never fully heal," she said.
The court in Salt Lake County heard from a woman who said she and Rossi began a relationship while she was recovering from a traumatic brain injury in 2008.