Man Accused Of Faking His Death Found Guilty Of Assault

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Rhode Island man accused of faking his death and fleeing the United States to evade rape charges has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a former girlfriend in his first of two Utah trials. A jury in Salt Lake County found Nicholas Rossi guilty of a 2008 rape after a three-day trial. He is to be sentenced on Oct. 20. An obituary published online claimed Rossi had died on Feb. 29, 2020, of late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma. But police in his home state of Rhode Island, along with his former lawyer and a former foster family, cast doubt on whether he was dead. He was arrested in Scotland the following year and extradited to Utah in January 2024.