No plea deal for US fugitive Nicholas Rossi

A US fugitive will stand trial in September for the rape allegation that triggered his extradition from Scotland after prosecutors in Utah withdrew their offer of a plea deal.

Nicholas Rossi was flown back to the US last year after being arrested in a Glasgow hospital, claiming to be an Irish orphan called Arthur Knight.

He eventually admitted his true identity during a court appearance in October.

Appearing on Tuesday by prison videolink, Rossi's lawyer told the judge that settlement discussions concerning an allegation dating back to 2008 in Utah County "haven't been fruitful".

In response Judge Derek Pullan ordered that the agreed trial scheduled for September should go ahead.

Rossi is also facing trial in April accused of a separate rape allegation in neighbouring Salt Lake County also dating back to 2008.

He has denied the charges.

Rossi was caught in 2021 while receiving treatment for Covid in a Glasgow hospital - but he insisted during a series of court appearances that his name was Arthur Knight.

He was finally extradited to the US in January 2024, more than a year after a Scottish court had ruled that he was indeed Nicholas Rossi.

The convicted sex offender - who was also known as Nicholas Alahverdian - faked his own death in 2020 and fled to Scotland to escape prosecution.

Rossi was arrested in December 2021 after hospital staff in Glasgow recognised his tattoos from images which had been circulated by Interpol.

In an attempt to avoid extradition, he insisted that he was Arthur Knight, an orphan from Ireland who had never been to the US.

Rossi claimed that he had been given the distinctive tattoos while he was lying unconscious in the Glasgow hospital in an attempt to frame him.

He made a series of court appearances in a wheelchair, wearing a three-piece suit and an oxygen mask.

Rossi sacked several lawyers and continued to maintain that he was the innocent victim of mistaken identity.

But in November 2022 Sheriff Norman McFadyen ruled that he was Nicholas Rossi, describing his mistaken identity claims as "implausible" and "fanciful".

An order granting Rossi's extradition to the US was signed by Scotland's justice secretary in September 2023, and he was flown back to America in January 2024 after losing his final appeal.

During a bail hearing in Salt Lake City last October, Rossi admitted for the first time that he and the alias Arthur Knight were the same person.

He denied fleeing to the UK to escape arrest, claiming that he had left the country and later used the alias in order to escape threats.