RI man Nicholas Alahverdian ordered held in Scottish prison years after he faked his death
Nicholas Alahverdian, the Rhode Island man who faked his death in 2020 and is wanted on sex and fraud charges, was ordered held without bail in prison in Scotland on Friday, pending a pre-extradition hearing next month.
Michelle Baillie, the criminal office manager in Edinburgh Sheriff Court, told The Journal that Alahverdian’s next court date is scheduled for Feb. 13.
Alahverdian appeared in court in a wheelchair, wearing pajamas, and denied that he was Nicholas Rossi, the international fugitive wanted in Utah on a rape charge and in Ohio on financial fraud claims.
Alahverdian has used several aliases, police say, including the name Arthur Knight while in Scotland.
Before the proceedings began, Alahverdian covered his head with a towel, according to the Edinburgh Courts Press Service.
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As the proceedings began, the towel was removed to show Alahverdian wearing an oxygen mask.
The clerk of the court asked him: "Are you Nicholas Rossi?" the name Alahverdian used in Rhode Island prior to taking his father's surname about a decade ago.
Alahverdian started to cough and said something that Sheriff Alistair Noble could not understand.
"Was that a yes?" he asked Alahverdian's lawyer.
"It's a no my lord," the lawyer, Fred MacKintosh, replied.
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Alahverdian, who faked his death in February 2020, turned up in a Glasgow hospital last month suffering from COVID-19 and was placed on a ventilator. Interpol authorities matched his identity through photographs and his identity was confirmed through fingerprints when he was arrested Dec. 13 in the hospital, police have said.
He was granted initial parole after his Dec. 23 arraignment. But when he failed to appear Thursday for a bail review hearing, said Baillie, a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Thursday evening, police extracted Alahverdian from the Glasgow flat where he had been living. Video of the arrest from the Scottish Sun showed officers struggling to get Alahverdian and his wheelchair down a ramp set up over the steps outside his apartment building and into a van. Alahverdian was connected to an oxygen tank at the time.
Alahverdian was convicted of groping a woman in 2008 at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio. The attack happened in a college stairwell on the first day the two had met in person, the woman told The Journal this week.
Just months after his conviction in that case, in September 2008, Utah officials say he raped a 21-year-old woman. Like the Ohio woman, he had first connected with her online.
After about two weeks of actual dating, the Utah woman told police she ended the relationship because Alahverdian was getting rough with her when having sex, and because he owed her money.
On Sept. 13, 2008, the woman said Alahverdian invited her over to where he was living, telling her he would repay the money he owed her.
Instead Alahverdian raped her on a couch, court records say. Afterwards Alahverdian “told her this was her fault because she is 'mentally unstable and too emotional to deal with.'”
Utah officials say DNA from the rape case matched DNA gathered from the Ohio groping case.
Leavitt said last week that authorities have found police reports in four states, including Rhode Island, where women accused Alahverdian of assault or harassment.
Pawtucket police records show that between July 2010 and May 2011, Alahverdian was the subject of at least four complaints from different women.
Email Tom Mooney at: tmooney@providencejournal.com
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Nick Alahverdian ordered held in Scottish prison without bail
