Betrayed by his tattoos. A man facing extradition to the United States on rape and sexual assault charges but claiming to be the victim of mistaken identity was identified by British courts on Friday as the suspect sought.
The 35-year-old man, who claimed for months to be Arthur Knight and to be an orphan born in Ireland, is actually Nicholas Rossi, an American wanted in the United States as part of an investigation into the rape of a wife in Utah and other sexual assaults , an Edinburgh court has ruled. “Mr. Knight is indeed Nicholas Rossi, the person wanted for extradition by the United States,” Judge Norman McFayden said in his ruling, highlighting the evidence presented during the case.
Identified during a hospital stay
He is suspected of faking his death in the US and fleeing to Scotland to avoid prosecution. He had been arrested in October 2021 when he had Covid-19 and went to a hospital in Glasgow. Police and carers had identified him as Nicholas Rossi because his tattoos matched the description of the man on Interpol’s wanted list.
But since then he has formally denied being Nicholas Rossi, going so far as to claim the tattoos had been done on him without his knowledge while he was unconscious in hospital. He also said his fingerprints, taken at the hospital, had been swapped with those of Rossi to pass him off as the wanted man. His explanations are “improbable and fanciful”, assessed during the proceedings the judge Norman McFayden, adding that these repeated changes of identity are the behavior of “a person hiding from someone or something”.