Scottish prosecutor: Nicholas Alahverdian refuses to give DNA sample or fingerprints
Nicholas Alahverdian’s attempt to convince a Scottish court that he’s an unassuming Englishman wrongly accused of being a fugitive rapist and swindler appeared to suffer a setback Thursday.
A Scottish prosecutor told an extradition court in Edinburgh that the man who claims to be “Arthur Knight” has refused to voluntarily provide a DNA sample or fingerprints that would confirm his identity.
And, the prosecutor says, Alahverdian's Irish driver’s license appears to be a forgery.
Alahverdian wasn’t in the courtroom to hear the latest revelations in his made-for-TV case.
More: Nicholas Alahverdian channels Winston Churchill as he tries to rally England to his defense
The 34-year-old Rhode Islander who staged his demise two years ago to avoid the law reportedly slipped away in a Scottish ambulance on Thursday, headed for a hospital hours before his ordered appearance.
In a telephone interview with The Journal on Wednesday, Alahverdian said from his Glasgow apartment that he has COVID again (he was arrested in December while hospitalized for the virus) and therefore had no intention of complying with a judge’s order that he appear in person Thursday.
The reason, Alahverdian said, was he was afraid he might break the law by exposing others to the coronavirus.
“I could go,” he said, “but would that be lawful?”
A prosecutor last week accused Alahverdian of attempting to delay his extradition proceedings by claiming illness and twice taking himself to the hospital on the eve of hearings.
On Wednesday, Alahverdian said he objected to how the court was handling his case, noting at least two different sheriffs had been assigned to oversee the hearings.
“There should be one sheriff responsible for a case,” he said. “Why is there this inconsistency?”
More: How a RI con man's 'ludicrous' claims about his Utah prosecutor are election fodder
Alahverdian has been on the run since at least 2019, when the FBI began investigating in earnest complaints that he had taken out 22 credit cards in the name of his former foster father, running up debts totaling about $200,000.
He also attempted to take out credit cards in his former foster mother’s name but, as she told The Journal, she alerted financial institutions in time.
Alahverdian told an FBI agent in a telephone call in December 2019 that he was living in Ireland because it had no extradition treaty with the United States.
Rhode Island authorities have records of Alahverdian, a convicted sex offender since 2008, traveling to Great Britain in 2017. That year a woman from Essex, England, now says he raped her after they met on a dating website.
Seven months after he concocted his elaborate death story back in Rhode Island in February 2020, Utah officials issued an arrest warrant charging him with raping a former girlfriend in Orem, Utah, in 2008.
During Wednesday's phone interview with The Journal, Alahverdian denied he was the man who allegedly raped the woman from Essex, England in 2017.
“These allegations are not about me,” he said. “These allegations are about Nicholas Alahverdian.”
More: Nicholas Alahverdian faces another rape allegation from English woman he met online
The Essex woman says the man who raped her was indeed Alahverdian – the same man claiming to be Arthur Knight.
In an email to The Journal, she said she was “hoping he was back in the U.S., i.e. as far away from me as possible.”
The question of Alahverdian’s identity was continued until next Thursday, when he has been ordered once again to appear in court.
Email Tom Mooney at: tmooney@providencejournal.com
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Fugitive once again misses court hearing, tells Journal he has COVID
