Scottish judge recommends Alahverdian be extradited to Utah to face rape charges

Three years after convicted sex offender and masquerading conman Nicholas Alahverdian tried to vanish overseas by faking his death and concocting a new identity, a Scottish judge on Wednesday ruled the former Rhode Islander can be extradited to Utah to face rape charges. 

After months of tolerating Alahverdian’s delaying antics and wild courtroom explanations for why authorities had the wrong man, Sheriff Norman McFadyen delivered his ruling as Alahverdian appeared by video link from Edinburgh prison.

Sheriff McFadyen said of Alahverdian: “... he is as dishonest and deceitful as he is evasive and manipulative."

"These unfortunate facets of his character," he continued, "have undoubtedly complicated and extended what is ultimately a straightforward case."

'You're a disgrace to justice!'

His decision did not come without first more drama.

About an hour before the judge read his decision, the courtroom screen showed Alahverdian being wheeled into view before the prison camera, his body slouched over, his hands covering his face.

His lawyer, Mungo Bovey, explained to McFadyen that his client was feeling unwell, which was why he wasn’t appearing in person in court. Then Alahverdian, according to court room reporters, shouted out: “I’ve had a stroke and they’re refusing to treat me. I was brought in by force, your lordship!”

Alahverdian then turned his fury on the judge: “You’re a disgrace to justice, Norman McFadyen, you’re a disgrace to justice.”

McFadyen asked that the prison video signal be cut, then adjourned for a time before returning and reading his verdict.

More: 'Dateline NBC' to cover story of RI fugitive Nicholas Alahverdian. Here's the story.

Alahverdian, aka Nicholas Rossi, claimed to be someone else

Alahverdian, 36, was tracked down by Interpol and arrested in a Glasgow hospital in December 2021, where he was suffering from COVID-19. Since then he has pretended to be an English academic snared in an international tabloid saga. But much of story has been of his own making. 

He told McFadyen last fall that hospital staff conspired to ink identifying tattoos on his arms while he was in a COVID coma; someone else had sent his fingerprints to Utah to match those of the real Alahverdian. And he denied he was the person in Pawtucket police mug shots from a decade ago.

In June he told the court several absurdities, including that he and his legal team were close to identifying the real person who faked his death in this case to the detriment of the real Nicholas Alahverdian.

“If we don’t prove it,” he said, “I’m the one who looks the fool. And I don’t propose to look ridiculous.”

Despite ruling, Alahverdian won't be coming back anytime soon

Alahverdian, who was charged under the surname he once used of his stepfather, Rossi, likely won’t be jetting back to the United States anytime soon.

First, McFadyen’s decision must be forwarded on to a judicial board known as the Scottish Ministers to certify the extradition request, considered pro forma. And police in Essex, England, now want to interview him regarding allegations a woman made last year that Alahverdian raped her in 2017 in one of his first flights overseas to possibly avoid prosecution.

The previous year Alahverdian’s foster parents told the FBI and police in Ohio that Alahverdian had taken out two dozen credit cards in his foster father’s name and ran up debts approaching $200,000. Alahverdian then slipped out of Ohio also owing a former wife more than $52,000.

If Essex police decide to charge Alahverdian with a crime, that case would have to be adjudicated first before he was extradited back to the United States, Scottish legal experts have said.

Alahverdian can also appeal the extradition decision, though he would have to prove to a Scottish court first that valid grounds exist for an appeal.

Alahverdian planted the seeds of his disappearance for years

Alahverdian appeared to be making a concerted effort to disappear for good by the end of 2019.

Living in England with a woman soon to become his new wife, Alahverdian hired former attorney general Jeffrey Pine to have his name removed from Rhode Island’s sex offender registry, a status he had earned since his 2008 conviction for groping a woman in a stairwell at an Ohio community college.

Those on the registry are required to inform local police departments of their address and when they move.

Pine successfully argued before a judge that Alahverdian was out of the country with no intention or desire to even return to the United States, and Alahverdian’s name was removed.

Within weeks, Alahverdian was also calling reporters around Rhode Island, telling them he had late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma and only weeks to live. His life as a “crusader” for children, his State House lobbying for improving the child welfare system, was deserving of news, he insisted.

Two months later, in February 2020, a widely disseminated email from the “Alahverdian Family Office” announced his passing.

Alahverdian didn’t stop there.

Someone using his Wikipedia registration began eliminating sections of his Wikipedia page, including swapping out a photograph of him with a photoshopped image of someone else.

His page soon carried a warning: “The truthfulness of this article has been questioned. It is believed that some or all of its content may constitute a hoax.”

Despite several media reports of his death, Utah authorities, working with the Rhode Island State Police, issued an arrest warrant for Alahverdian months after his supposed death.

DNA evidence collected from Alahverdian’s 2008 groping conviction in Ohio connected him to a rape in Orem, Utah, that same year, authorities said.

Since then, Utah authorities have charged him with a second rape, in Salt Lake City, and a sexual battery incident in Orem.

Reaction to McFadyen's ruling was universal among several people who for at least two years have wanted Alahverdian returned to face justice.

Kathryn Heckendorn, of Ohio, who endured starting in 2015 what a divorce judge described as seven months of “gross neglect of duty and extreme cruelty” at the hands of her abusive husband, Alahverdian, said the judge’s decision brought her happiness.

“I’m so happy that the Scottish court didn’t believe his B.S. They saw right through him. And I’m so happy that we, the women he’s attacked, finally get our chance at justice. We finally get some peace.”

Former state Rep. Brian Coogan almost adopted Alahverdian 20 years ago when Alahverdian was a State House page and a product of the foster care system. But then Coogan learned how conniving and abusive the young man was, he said, and became one of the first skeptics of his supposed death.

“I’m really happy about it all – especially for all his victims,” said Coogan. “His victims are going to have a voice now, the chance to tell their story.” As for Alahverdian: “There’s no more tricks in his bag. He’s caught, he’s done. Nick is a monster.”

David Leavitt, the former Utah County attorney that sought Alahverdian's return, said the judge’s ruling was a “significant event in a long list of significant events that still have to occur for Nicholas Rossi to be brought to justice.”

But the former prosecutor said, “It’s a good day for everyone of Nicholas Rossi’s victims and more importantly for the people he won’t be victimizing now.”

Contact Tom Mooney at: tmooney@providencejournal.com

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Judge says Alahverdian is as 'deceitful' as he is 'manipulative'