Fugitive Nicholas Rossi faces 15 years in jail if convicted of rape

Image source, Andrew Milligan/PA

Image caption, Rossi, pictured leaving his extradition hearing at Edinburgh sheriff court in June last year.

By David Cowan

Home affairs correspondent, BBC Scotland

An American fugitive who has been extradited from Scotland to the United States could face two life sentences if he is convicted of raping two women.

Nicholas Rossi is facing charges in two neighbouring jurisdictions in Utah.

Prosecutors in the state say people convicted of rape are sentenced to five years to life, and typically serve between eight and 15 years.

The 36-year-old is said to have faked his own death and was hiding in Scotland when he was arrested.

He was discovered in a Glasgow hospital in December 2021.

On Friday he left on a private flight from Edinburgh Airport after losing his final appeal against extradition.

The convicted sex offender has been accused of raping a woman in the city of Orem in Utah County in 2008 and another woman in Salt Lake County later the same year.

District Attorney for Salt Lake County, Sim Gill, told BBC Scotland News that Rossi will face separate trials for each allegation.

His office and their counterparts in Utah County will decide who should prosecute him first.

Image caption, Salt Lake county district attorney, Sim Gill, said Rossi will face separate trials for both allegations of rape

The Salt Lake County case involves a woman who came forward in January 2022 after Utah County requested Rossi’s extradition from Scotland.

She has alleged that they met through a dating app in 2008 when she was 26 years old.

Court documents say the woman felt that Rossi was “smart, university-educated and interesting.”

She said they were discussing marriage when she started to have doubts about their relationship.

Mr Gill said: “After a period of time, she started to realise some things didn’t add up.

“She started to pull back from that relationship and it’s alleged that he became very angry with her in a parking lot.

“They decided to go home. He took her up to the bedroom and locked the door and sexually assaulted her against her will. It’s alleged that he raped her.”

Media caption, The story of Nicholas Rossi, the US fugitive who ‘faked his own death’ (Video by Morgan Spence, Graham Fraser and David MacNicol)

Mr Gill said the length of jail time served by a convicted prisoner is decided by the parole board.

He said: “Rape is a first-degree felony in our jurisdiction, so the maximum could be up to life in prison, depending on the history of the person and the underlying facts.

“If he’s in the custody, he’s not going anywhere, so we will just bide our time and prosecute when our turn comes.

“The injury that is often suffered by victims of sexual crime is something that they never lose, and so trying to find a measure of justice is critical, regardless of when it happened.”

The court papers from the Salt Lake County case say Rossi has been involved in “criminal cases of sex assault, harassment and possible kidnapping in Rhode Island, Ohio, Utah and Massachusetts.”

20 hours in a cell

Image caption, Nicholas Rossi will await trial at the Utah County Jail.

As an untried prisoner, Rossi will be held in a half-empty jail on the outskirts of a town called Spanish Fork.

With the snow-capped Wasatch Mountains in the distance, Utah County Jail was designed to not look like a prison when it was built 30 years ago.

Instead it resembles a community hospital, although a new security fence is being erected around the perimeter.

Sergeant Garrett Dutson of Utah County Sheriff’s Office said the jail has a capacity of 1,000 but is currently holding around 450 inmates.

It houses prisoners who’re waiting to go on trial and those serving sentences of under 12 months.

Image caption, Sgt Garrett Dutson of Utah county sheriff’s office said the conditions at the county jail are “pretty good” inmates have access to medical, educational and religious programmes.

“There’s multiple crimes from shoplifting to murder, from domestic violence and assault to child abuse, to sex crimes,” said Sgt Dutson.

“I would say most criminals in our jails are there for drug-related crimes.

“I think the conditions are pretty good. We have programmes for the inmates.

“There’s medical and educational things, there’s religion, things like that to keep them occupied.

“They do spend a lot of time in lockdown. They can average 20 hours a day in their cell.”

Rossi claimed to be an Irish orphan called Arthur Knight when he was fighting extradition, but a sheriff said fingerprints proved he was Nicholas Rossi.