Nicholas Rossi dies in Utah prison hospital

Nicholas Rossi, the convicted rapist who authorities said faked his death and fled to Scotland to avoid U.S. charges, has died after being taken from a Utah prison to a hospital, corrections officials said.

The Utah Department of Corrections said Rossi, 38, died Thursday night at a local hospital from “complications of an existing medical condition after choosing to discontinue medical treatment.” A department spokesman told the BBC that Rossi had been suffering from “chronic, degenerative conditions” and said he “chose to remove himself from the care that was being provided.”

The department said Rossi was pronounced dead at 20:32 on Thursday, June 25, 2026. His family and victims were notified.

Rossi was serving a prison sentence in Utah for sexual assault. CBS News reported that he was serving at least 10 years after convictions in 2025 in two sexual assault cases. The BBC reported that he was serving 10 years to life and had been convicted in separate trials in August and September 2024 of raping two women in Utah in 2008.

Utah authorities had been searching for Rossi after he was identified in 2018 through a decade-old DNA rape kit. Months after he was charged, an online obituary said he had died on Feb. 29, 2020, of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Police in his home state of Rhode Island, his former lawyer and a former foster family questioned whether he was dead.

Rossi, also known as Nicholas Alahverdian, was later found in Scotland. He was arrested in 2021 while receiving treatment for COVID-19 in a Glasgow hospital. Hospital staff recognized him from an Interpol wanted notice and by distinctive tattoos, including a Brown University crest inked on his shoulder, though CBS News reported he never attended the university.

He denied being Rossi and claimed he was an Irish-born orphan named Arthur Knight who had never been to America. In an interview with the BBC, he maintained that account but could not produce a birth certificate or passport. Investigators said they identified at least a dozen aliases Rossi had used over the years to evade capture.

During extradition hearings at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Rossi often appeared in an electric wheelchair, wearing an oxygen mask, hat and three-piece suit. He insisted he was the victim of mistaken identity and claimed his tattoos had been placed on him while he was unconscious in the hospital as part of an effort to frame him.

A Scottish sheriff ruled in 2023 that he was Nicholas Rossi and described his mistaken-identity claim as “implausible” and “fanciful,” according to the BBC. Rossi was extradited to the United States in January 2024 after failing to overturn the decision. The BBC reported that he later admitted his real identity during a bail hearing in Salt Lake City.

Richard Piatt, a spokesperson for the Utah Department of Corrections, told the Associated Press he could not disclose details about Rossi’s health problems. During court appearances, Rossi had appeared in a wheelchair and used oxygen.