Nicholas Rossi, 38, who was accused of faking his own death and fleeing to Europe to evade rape charges in the United States, died Thursday night. Authorities said his death occurred after he was taken to a hospital from a Utah prison and chose to discontinue medical treatment.
Rossi was serving at least 10 years in prison in Utah following his convictions in 2025 in two sexual assault cases. Richard Piatt, a spokesperson for the Utah Department of Corrections, confirmed Rossi's death and stated it was due to "complications of an existing medical condition after choosing to discontinue medical treatment." Piatt added that Rossi's victims and family had been notified.
While Piatt declined to elaborate on Rossi's specific health issues, court appearances in the past had shown him using a wheelchair and oxygen. Rossi had been extradited to Utah from Scotland in 2024. Utah authorities had been searching for him after he was identified in 2018 through a DNA rape kit that was over a decade old.
Months after he was charged in the Utah case, an online obituary claimed Rossi had died on February 29, 2020, from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. However, law enforcement in his home state of Rhode Island, along with his former lawyer and a former foster family, expressed doubts about his reported death.
He was arrested in Scotland the following year while receiving treatment for COVID-19. Hospital staff recognized distinctive tattoos, including a Brown University crest on his shoulder, despite him never having attended the institution. Rossi maintained he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight and that he was being framed by investigators. Authorities stated that Rossi utilized at least a dozen aliases throughout the years to avoid capture.