Nicholas Alahverdian faces second rape charge in Utah
Nicholas Alahverdian, already fighting extradition from Scotland to Utah on a rape charge, is now facing a second rape charge in that state.
On Wednesday the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office filed charges against the fugitive con man for first-degree sexual assault. The assault allegedly occurred between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, 2008.
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A no-bail warrant for his arrest was also issued.
In a statement, the office said, “We are working with the Utah County Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Attorney on the extradition of Nicholas Rossi from Scotland.”
Alahverdian has also used Rossi, his stepfather's surname.
The office released the statement about the new charges on Wednesday, a day before Alahverdian is scheduled to appear back in Edinburgh Sheriff Court for an extradition hearing.
In recent weeks Scottish prosecutors have accused Alahverdian, 35, of attempting to delay his extradition proceedings by refusing to give fingerprint and DNA samples and feigning illness requiring hospitalizations.
The accompanying affidavit in the new case, collected by the Utah State Bureau of Investigations, reads similar to several other affidavits in which women in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Ohio have charged Alahverdian with assault dating back more than a decade.
According to the new affidavit:
The woman, identified only by the initials M.S., said she was 26 when she met Alahverdian online, and that they dated in Salt Lake County from November 2008 through the end of the year.
The woman said Alahverdian seemed nice at first, smart, “university educated” – although he was not – and “liked attention.”
He was “also manipulative,” unemployed and convinced her to loan him money.
He also convinced her in a very short time that they should marry.
They bought rings but one day while visiting a shopping complex, Alahverdian “was rude towards her.”
She took off the ring she was wearing and locked herself in her car, which sent Alahverdian into a rage.
“Rossi stood outside the car screaming ... and hitting the car.” Eventually the woman let him back in and they drove to his home in South Salt Lake.
There Rossi “refused to get out of the car and told [the woman] that he would call the cops on her and say that she hit him.”
After he calmed down, he agreed to go inside, where the two argued about breaking up – and with the woman saying she would not marry him.
At that point, Rossi refused to let her out of a bedroom, threw her onto the bed and allegedly raped her.
The affidavit’s author, agent Derek Coats, said that in investigating this and other allegations against Alahverdian, he’s discovered “a consistent pattern of behavior.”
Alahverdian meets women online, they date and eventually he initiates some “inappropriate contact,” after which the woman wants to leave.
At that point, Coats reported, Alahverdian “will either threaten to commit suicide or will force a non-consensual sexual encounter.”
In this new case, wrote Coats: “The victim disclosed being scared during the incident and stated that she is still scared of the defendant and still fears that he will find her one day.”
Alahverdian is charged with another rape just two months earlier, in September 2008, in Orem, Utah, 40 miles south of Salt Lake. Authorities say he met that woman online, too.
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Alahverdian was in a Glasgow hospital last week when police say he threatened a doctor and a nurse. He was arrested on the charge, and during his booking his fingerprints confirmed his identity.
Alahverdian, a former Rhode Islander who faked his death in 2020, has been insisting since his arrest Dec. 13 that heis a different person, and a victim of mistaken identity.
In supporting that Alahverdian be held without bail – if and when he is returned to Utah – Coats wrote: “There is substantial evidence supporting the charge and clear and convincing evidence that the defendant would constitute a substantial danger to any other individual or to the community or is likely to flee the jurisdiction of the court, if released.”
email Tom Mooney at: tmooney@providencejournal.com
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Nicholas Alahverdian Rossi faces second rape charge in Utah
