SALT LAKE CITY - A Rhode Island man, Nicholas Rossi, who allegedly faked his death to evade rape charges, is set to be sentenced on Monday for one of his two rape convictions in Utah. Rossi, 38, could face a prison term ranging from five years to life when District Judge Barry Lawrence delivers the sentence in Salt Lake City.

This sentencing marks the first of two planned for Rossi, who was found guilty in separate trials for raping two women in northern Utah back in 2008. He faces another sentencing on November 4 for his second conviction, which carries a similar potential sentence of five years to life.

Rossi was convicted in August of rape following a three-day trial where jurors heard testimonies from his accuser and her parents, while Rossi chose not to testify in his defense. The timeline from the rapes to his eventual convictions spanned over a decade, with Utah authorities beginning their search for Rossi in 2018. He was identified through a DNA sample linked to a rape kit associated with a different case.

Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, was reported deceased in an online obituary that claimed he died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma on February 29, 2020. However, doubts about his death were raised by Rhode Island police, his former lawyer, and members of a past foster family. Authorities continued their pursuit of Rossi, and he was ultimately apprehended in Scotland while receiving treatment for COVID-19 in 2021. Medical staff recognized him due to distinctive tattoos, including one displaying the crest of Brown University, and that led to his arrest based on an Interpol notice.

Following a lengthy legal battle, Rossi was extradited to Utah in January 2024. During this process, he claimed to be an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight, insisting he was the victim of a conspiracy. Investigators found that Rossi had employed at least a dozen aliases in his attempts to evade law enforcement.

In his first trial in Utah, Rossi's public defender denied the allegations against him and urged the jury not to draw conclusions from his international flight. One of the victims, who was recovering from a traumatic brain injury when she met Rossi through a personal ad on Craigslist, described how their relationship progressed quickly to engagement. She recounted that Rossi would often ask her for financial assistance, which eventually morphed into a hostile situation that led to sexual assault in his bedroom.

This victim came forward years later after learning that Rossi had been accused of raping another woman around the same timeframe. That second victim had reported the incident shortly after it occurred at Rossi's apartment in Orem, Utah, where she had gone to retrieve money Rossi had allegedly stolen from her.

Rossi's troubled background includes a childhood spent in foster homes in Rhode Island and previous legal issues, including a failure to register as a sex offender in the state. It's also worth noting that the FBI has reported additional fraud charges against him in Ohio, where he was convicted of sex-related offenses in 2008. Rossi's attempts to evade justice have been thwarted, but it remains to be seen what consequences await him in Utah.