Dead Man Talking

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Speaker 4 tonight on Dateline.

Speaker 5 He seemed very sympathetic and reassuring.

Speaker 8 Like, he'll take care of me.

Speaker 9 We instantly vibed and we had a very good time.

Speaker 11 He said he graduated Harvard.

Speaker 9 He was trying to be big in Rhode Island politics.

Speaker 9 He went from charming to a monster in a heartbeat.

Speaker 14 What are you hiding from me? Stop ignoring me!

Speaker 9 I wondered if he was going to kill me in that basement.

Speaker 15 He's dangerous.

Speaker 16 Dangerous.

Speaker 12 Where I learned that Nick was being sought by the FBI for fraud.

Speaker 17 They found a trail of victims.

Speaker 5 He just kind of disappeared.

Speaker 19 They couldn't find him.

Speaker 11 Poof.

Speaker 20 Yeah, just poof. They said, we believe he's faked his own death, that he's in Europe.

Speaker 21 He had numerous aliases.

Speaker 2 There are a lot of people out there who say that you're not the man you're portraying yourself to be.

Speaker 4 Could this wanted man now be living in disguise as this English gent in Scotland?

Speaker 2 Did you sexually assault anyone? Did you defraud anyone?

Speaker 2 This could be a movie. This will be a movie, there's no question of it.

Speaker 2 You couldn't make it up.

Speaker 4 News reports said he was dead. Investigators said he was living on the lamb.
Go along on a wild hunt for the truth.

Speaker 14 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 4 Here's Andrea Canning with Dead Men Talking:

Speaker 2 Medieval castles, mysterious locks,

Speaker 2 and haunting landscapes.

Speaker 2 Scotland is rich with legends and lore. And it's the setting of a present-day mystery that has captured the world's attention.

Speaker 2 At the center is this man. Who is he? Well, that's the million-dollar question.
Law enforcement, international media, and Dateline have spent months trying to find out.

Speaker 2 Authorities say he's a wanted American fugitive named Nicholas Alaverdian. He insists he's an innocent Englishman named Arthur Knight.
Wrongly swept up in an international dragnet.

Speaker 2 One thing is for sure. He's one of the most perplexing and confounding people we've ever encountered.
So are you saying that they've got the wrong guy?

Speaker 24 I am not Andrea.

Speaker 25 I am not Nicholas Alaverdian.

Speaker 2 Are you crying, Arthur?

Speaker 25 Forgive me. I'm sorry.
I can't walk. People say that's that.
Let me try to stand up. Let me try to stand up.

Speaker 2 The story's stranger than fiction, but that's what's great about it. And it's not over yet.

Speaker 2 The trail that led us to Scotland in that baffling interview started here in Rhode Island, where we began our investigation into a man of many faces, places, and names.

Speaker 2 Nicholas Aliverdian was born just outside of Providence in 1987. Who was the young man you knew?

Speaker 27 Gentle soul,

Speaker 27 smiling face. He run into my arms,

Speaker 27 always happy to see me. He was just a happy child.

Speaker 2 Michael Aliverdian is Nicholas's uncle. He says behind his nephew's smile was a childhood that was anything but idyllic.
What was the family dynamic like with Nicholas when he was a child?

Speaker 27 There was turmoil in the family. My brother had some issues, so there were quite a few fights, arguments, that type of thing.

Speaker 2 Nicholas's father was a felon, convicted of writing fraudulent checks, dealing drugs, and domestic assault.

Speaker 2 The situation at home in Cranston, a suburb of Providence, became so dangerous, Michael says Nicholas's mother got a restraining order and went into hiding with Nicholas and his younger brother and sister.

Speaker 2 The couple eventually divorced.

Speaker 27 I'm sure that took its toll on Nicholas and his siblings.

Speaker 2 And things only got worse. By the time Nicholas turned 12, his mother was unable to care for him, so he ended up in foster care, floating between different families and group homes.

Speaker 30 According to Nick, he was treated poorly.

Speaker 29 He was raped, assaulted daily, sometimes.

Speaker 2 Tom Mooney writes for the Providence Journal and has been following Nicholas's story for three years. We hired him to consult for us.

Speaker 2 He says despite living through one trauma after the next, Nicholas was determined to make something of his life. A family court judge gave him that chance.

Speaker 29 Arrangements were made to give Nick a job at the Statehouse as a Statehouse page. Pages are teenage kids who do clerical work.

Speaker 2 It was the perfect fit for Nicholas, and he became a fixture at Rhode Island's seat of power. You were a representative here.

Speaker 30 Yeah, so I was a rep from 2000 to 2004. I first met Nick across from the rotunda, and he was about 14 years old, and he was a page.

Speaker 2 Former state representative Brian Coogan says the teenager impressed everyone with a tireless work ethic and a brilliant mind.

Speaker 30 He would read bills that most reps and senators wouldn't read. He'd read it from front to back, learn the laws, know the laws.
So he was like a lawyer by trade.

Speaker 2 Nicholas spent long days at the state house wowing legislators before returning home to his other life.

Speaker 30 Nick was actually pretty much a ward of the state.

Speaker 2 Coogan was so taken with Nicholas and everything he'd been through that he briefly considered adopting him. That didn't work out.
By 19, Nicholas aged out of the system and later went to college.

Speaker 2 Five years after that, he was back at the state house, this time fighting to bring change to the foster care system.

Speaker 29 He personified this almost Dickens character who spent a great deal of time when he was young in shelters and foster homes, came from a very dysfunctional family, And here he is in a suit coat doing the best he can to improve his lot.

Speaker 29 That's how he got attention from the media. That's how he got great support and sympathy from lawmakers.

Speaker 2 We found one state rep who remembers Nicholas as a young shining star on the hill.

Speaker 31 If you see people with compassion and that really want to advocate for something, that's Nick.

Speaker 2 In 2011, Representative Raymond Hull was newly elected when he was approached by Nicholas. He describes him as a young man with a tenacious spirit, determined to make a difference.

Speaker 31 And that's how I get attached to him. I said, Nick, whatever I can do for you, how to help you.
And I think I even sponsored a couple of bills for him to try to change the processes of DCYF.

Speaker 2 DCYF, the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, the agency Nicholas claimed failed to protect him as a teenager. And I was subjected to torture, beatings, assault in various forms.

Speaker 2 Nicholas sued DCYF. They denied the allegations and the case ultimately settled.
The details of the settlement are sealed, but the stories brought Nicholas sympathy and some powerful allies.

Speaker 30 Nick would have his rallies here and ask people to support him, come down.

Speaker 2 And he'd get quite the audience here, of people listening.

Speaker 30 He would get quite the audience, right? And Nick was a promoter. He knew how to, you know, get his message out.

Speaker 2 It's kids.

Speaker 16 And you know what?

Speaker 29 Kids are more important.

Speaker 2 Nicholas reconnected with his uncle, Michael Aliverdian. Michael says he was impressed at the man his nephew had become.

Speaker 27 I was amazed at his knowledge, his intelligence, what he was trying to do, which I thought was a great thing. He was trying to protect children.

Speaker 2 But Nicholas's crusade was about to be cut short. He contacted the press in Rhode Island with a tragic announcement.

Speaker 29 He had this terminal illness, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Speaker 29 He was going to die.

Speaker 2 And less than two months later, the news was out. Nicholas Aliverdian was dead at the age of 32.

Speaker 32 Sad news to pass along. Nicholas Aloverdian passed away from a long battle with cancer.

Speaker 2 But before long, new information about Nicholas would start making its way around Rhode Island, leaving everyone wondering how well they really knew him and if he was really dead at all.

Speaker 20 Shortly afterwards, I got a call from the state police. We'd ask you not to have the mask because Nicholas is not dead.

Speaker 20 W-P-R-O, Providence, Accumula Station.

Speaker 32 Sad news to pass along. Nicholas Aliverdian passed away from a long battle with cancer.
Nicholas Aliverdian was 32.

Speaker 2 His obituary, sent out by the office of Nicholas Aliverdean, ran in local papers in the Boston Globe.

Speaker 2 According to the Obit, Nicholas's final words on his deathbed were, fear not and run toward the bliss of the sun, as he listened to the music from the 1997 film Contact, a movie about communicating with extraterrestrials.

Speaker 2 The piece lauded Nicholas as a beloved community leader, peacemaker, warrior.

Speaker 2 Nicholas was so well known here at the Rhode Island State House that when word of his death got out, legislators took time out of their proceedings to acknowledge him.

Speaker 33 It's a House resolution expressing the passion of Nicholas Alibertian.

Speaker 34 Very, very sad. May you rest in peace, Nicholas.

Speaker 2 His uncle was also sad, but proud.

Speaker 27 He accomplished something.

Speaker 2 Father Bernard Healy of Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church got a call from a woman who said she was Nicholas's widow, a woman named Louise.

Speaker 20 She said she was in Switzerland. He had died.
She asked if she could have a memorial mass here at Our Lady of Mercy.

Speaker 2 Is this something that you were happy to do?

Speaker 20 It's memorial mass. I said, we have memorial masses for anybody.

Speaker 20 So she sent Nicholas's bio for the priest to reference at the mass and after reading that biography you would think that he was a cross between mother teresa and nelson vandela she also sent him a lengthy list of requests she wanted uh four or five speakers to speak at the funeral all either present elected officials or past elected officials and then a list of music she wanted mozartz and uh bach and beethoven one of the questions was if we'd hire a symphony orchestra who'd be paying for it at that point Father Healy wasn't sure how to respond.

Speaker 2 What happened next was almost biblical.

Speaker 20 Shortly afterwards, I got a call from the state police. We'd ask you not to have the mass because Nicholas is not dead.

Speaker 24 Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 It wasn't that he'd risen from the dead.

Speaker 20 They said, well, we believe he's faked his own death, that he's in Europe. Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 2 He faked his own death? But why would a respected man who'd become such a positive force for change try to fool everyone?

Speaker 2 To begin to answer that question, we went back to his childhood before he was ever put in foster care.

Speaker 35 I said, These kids need a father figure.

Speaker 2 David Rossi is Nicholas's adoptive father. Nicholas was eight when David married his mom in 1996.

Speaker 2 The two fell in love in a Rhode Island nightclub where David was an Engelbert Humperdink impersonator who mingled with his idol and sang hits like After the Lovin'.

Speaker 1 So I sing you to sleep

Speaker 1 after the lovin'.

Speaker 35 She was waitressing and she was absolutely beautiful. We got serious.
We got married.

Speaker 2 That's when Nicholas Aliverdian became Nicholas Rossi.

Speaker 2 Even at a young age, David could tell he was a bright kid.

Speaker 27 Computer whiz, math whiz, just in general.

Speaker 35 Very high IQ, but he knew it. And he took advantage of it.
He would threaten people. I'll get out my computer.

Speaker 28 I'll ruin your life in five minutes.

Speaker 2 Along with those threats came physical violence by Nicholas. David remembers one morning before school when Nicholas wouldn't stop hitting his mother.

Speaker 35 He was swinging at her, swinging at me. I picked him up, put him on the bus in his underwear.
The bus drove away. The school called us.

Speaker 35 But you know, you're at a point where you don't know what to do with this kid. He ruined every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, every birthday for him and his siblings.
He was wicked.

Speaker 35 He was a devil spawn. He really was.

Speaker 2 David says it got to the point where Nicholas's behavior was so bad they had to institutionalize him several times, but nothing seemed to work.

Speaker 35 They threw him out of there. Nobody could handle him.

Speaker 2 David admits he eventually hit a breaking point. When Nicholas was 10 years old, the family took a trip to Disney World.
He says Nicholas attacked his mother again.

Speaker 35 He started hitting her. When I tell you, I snapped like that, I couldn't take them on.
I beat the hell out of him. I put him in the hospital.

Speaker 14 What? That's yeah.

Speaker 35 I lost it. I'm ashamed of it.

Speaker 1 I always will be.

Speaker 35 She had to pull me off him.

Speaker 2 He's a child, though, and you're an adult, and that's child abuse. I snapped.

Speaker 35 All the years, all the years of the problems and the trouble with him.

Speaker 2 Trouble, he says, that would follow Nicholas into adulthood. David was arrested for assault in Florida, but says the charges were later dropped after authorities learned about Nicholas's past issues.

Speaker 2 Shortly after, David walked out on the family. That was about the time Nicholas ended up in foster care.

Speaker 2 It was a few years later when state rep Brian Coogan considered adopting him. Did he straight up ask you, will you adopt me?

Speaker 30 Yes, he did.

Speaker 2 Nicholas was 14 when he called Brian one day from the courthouse crying. He said he was about to be shipped off to yet another group home if he wasn't adopted that very day.

Speaker 2 Brian raced over to the courthouse.

Speaker 30 The judge said, do you know what's going on with this kid? I said, judge, he's being abused.

Speaker 30 He's got mocks on him, scratches, bruises. The judge says he had his whole file.

Speaker 30 He says, I can't show you this file, but trust me, everything he's telling you that's being done to him he's actually doing to the other kids wow so those are big allegations big big

Speaker 2 since records involving children are sealed the allegations made against nicholas can't be verified

Speaker 29 coogan took the judge's advice and didn't adopt nicholas and maybe dodged a bullet veteran reporter tom mooney thinks so there are innumerable people who have come to his aid over the years, who have wanted to help him, who he ultimately turns on.

Speaker 29 That sort of gets to that other side of Nick Galibernian.

Speaker 2 That other side came out with a vengeance years later when he was attending Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio. A fellow student says Nicholas reached out to her on MySpace.

Speaker 9 He told me that he was new to the area and he wanted to have friends in the area.

Speaker 2 Mary Grabinski was a 19-year-old freshman at Sinclair. She told Nicholas she had a boyfriend and wasn't interested in anything romantic.
He assured her it was not a problem.

Speaker 2 Soon after, they agreed to meet for lunch at the school cafeteria and she brought along a friend.

Speaker 9 He was extremely friendly. We hit it off and he was charming.
He was so easy to talk to.

Speaker 37 He was a good listener.

Speaker 9 We had a good time. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Afterwards, Nick asked Mary if he could walk her to her next class. Since it was the middle of the day on a busy college campus, she thought, why not? Her classroom was in the basement.

Speaker 9 So when he took me into the basement, I didn't think anything weird of it.

Speaker 2 But in that basement, Mary encountered a different side of Nicholas.

Speaker 9 There were a couple of times I wondered if he was going to kill me in that basement.

Speaker 2 In the winter of 2008, on an Ohio college campus, 21-year-old Nicholas Rossi walked Mary Grabinski to class. Once they reached the bottom of a stairwell, she says Nick suddenly turned on her.

Speaker 9 He pins me up against the wall and he starts both hands going up my shirt.

Speaker 2 And what are you saying to him?

Speaker 9 I'm saying, hey, can you please get off me? I need to

Speaker 10 go to my class. I had a test that day.

Speaker 9 So I was really leveraging my test.

Speaker 2 Did he stop?

Speaker 23 No.

Speaker 2 Did he continue?

Speaker 9 He was trying to kiss me and I kind of put my head to the side because

Speaker 9 I was very disgusted. He had his hands up my shirt.
I just couldn't push him off me.

Speaker 2 She saw another student coming down the stairs, but Mary was too paralyzed to scream.

Speaker 9 Probably just thought we were horny teenagers and ran right out.

Speaker 2 Nicholas was undeterred.

Speaker 9 He went from touching my shirt to

Speaker 9 taking my pants off.

Speaker 24 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, he's pulling your pants down.

Speaker 9 Yeah, he's touching himself. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 What is going through your mind as all of this is happening in front of you?

Speaker 9 I thought for sure he was going to rape me, but I did. There were a couple of times I wondered if

Speaker 9 he was going to kill me in that basement.

Speaker 2 What does he say when he is finished?

Speaker 9 Pretty much he finishes and I just left.

Speaker 2 You just left? I just left. Where do you go from?

Speaker 9 I went to my class.

Speaker 2 Too stunned to process what had happened, Mary went to class and took her test.

Speaker 9 It didn't hit me right away. I was just like,

Speaker 9 did that really just happen to me?

Speaker 2 She says when her test was over, he was back. Nicholas was right outside her classroom waiting, where he profusely apologized.

Speaker 9 He was begging me at that point not to press charges or to tell anybody what had happened.

Speaker 2 Mary ignored him and went straight to the campus police. After starting an investigation, they sent her to the local prosecutor's office.

Speaker 9 When I first talked to the prosecutors, they said that they didn't have enough evidence to pursue a case against him.

Speaker 2 They didn't want to do anything.

Speaker 38 No, not at first.

Speaker 9 It wasn't until they got a police report stating his version, saying that I was the aggressor.

Speaker 2 Probably their gut feeling, too, was looking at you and saying, really? Yeah. She's the aggressor? You said you were 90 pounds? Yeah,

Speaker 9 I was very thin back then, yeah.

Speaker 2 There was something about the way Nicholas attacked her that made her feel like he'd done this before.

Speaker 9 It almost felt...

Speaker 37 ritualistic.

Speaker 9 I knew I was not his first, but I wanted to make sure I was the last.

Speaker 2 In fact, another woman in Ohio, just 15 days earlier, reported to police that Nicholas Rossi had sexually assaulted her, but she decided not to pursue it further.

Speaker 2 In Mary's case, he was charged with public indecency and sexual imposition, which means sexual contact against a person's will. What did he take from you in that moment?

Speaker 9 Pretty much my will to live.

Speaker 9 But that was just the beginning for me.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it didn't end there. No.

Speaker 2 Nicholas pleaded not guilty and the case went to trial. Mary says that's when she was victimized yet again.

Speaker 9 The worst part was his defense coming at me and picking me and my story apart. Talking about what happened to me wasn't hard.

Speaker 9 Having someone, you know, question who I am as a person and question my integrity, that was hard.

Speaker 2 But the attack on Mary's credibility didn't work. The judge believed her and convicted Nicholas on both charges.

Speaker 2 Mary says he showed up to his sentencing wearing a three-piece suit and holding something she'd never seen him with before.

Speaker 9 He brought a cane and came in with a limp, and neither of the other two hearings that we had did he pretend as if he was injured. You know, he walked fine.

Speaker 2 Did you think it was a show?

Speaker 38 I know for sure it was a show.

Speaker 2 And she thinks his show may have had an effect. Nicholas got no jail time.
Perhaps a lesson he'd tuck away next to his pocket square to use in the future. What did the judge sentence him to?

Speaker 9 He did sentence a fine.

Speaker 9 He had to attend a sex offender rehabilitation program. He had to register as a sex offender for 15 years.

Speaker 2 But that wasn't the last Mary would hear from Nicholas. Far from it.
What emotions are you feeling?

Speaker 9 It's pretty much fear the whole time.

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Speaker 2 Mary Grabinski breathed a sigh of relief after Nicholas Rossi was convicted of attacking her. She was ready to move on.
But a few months later, she got word that the judge had reopened the case.

Speaker 2 Nicholas claimed he had new evidence that would clear him. A post on MySpace allegedly written by Mary saying she'd made the whole thing up.

Speaker 9 It is a drunk confession that the event that happened between Nick and I was not only consensual, but I lied about it to the police to hide my undying love for Nick.

Speaker 2 The judge thought the post was a fake and closed the case, but Nicholas still wouldn't let it go.

Speaker 9 He tried to sue all the prosecutors involved. He ended up suing me.
He was saying that because he had to register as a sex offender, it was hard for him to get dates and

Speaker 9 employment opportunities.

Speaker 2 So now, Mary had to defend herself again against the man who sexually assaulted her. She had to borrow money from her parents to hire an attorney.
What emotions are you feeling?

Speaker 9 It's pretty much fear the whole time.

Speaker 2 Fear. Yeah.

Speaker 9 Fear that I, you know, the litigation could go his way and I have to pay him millions of dollars.

Speaker 2 All the while, Nick cyber-stalked her, carrying out an online smear campaign on a men's rights website called A Voice for Men, posting pictures of her and her personal information.

Speaker 2 Eventually, the case was thrown out and Nicholas was ordered to pay Mary's legal fees. But amazingly, it wasn't over.

Speaker 9 Well, at that point in time, that's about when he put out his second lawsuit against me. Oh, another one?

Speaker 2 Yep.

Speaker 9 It was in 2012.

Speaker 9 Wow. My husband called him crazy on a blog.

Speaker 9 He found out, and

Speaker 9 not soon after, litigation came.

Speaker 2 Do you have to get a lawyer again?

Speaker 24 Sure did.

Speaker 2 And what happens this time?

Speaker 37 He loses the case, and I get all my lawyer. My lawyer fees paid back.

Speaker 2 It was then that he moved back to Rhode Island, and it wasn't long before Nicholas was walking the halls of the statehouse again.

Speaker 2 At 23 years old, his new polished look and his new crusade to change the foster care system perhaps helped disguise his criminal past.

Speaker 29 There was this sort of dark side that no one really took a close look at because the other side

Speaker 29 was so bright and promising.

Speaker 2 Reporter Tom Mooney's closer look revealed that while Nicholas was impressing lawmakers, according to police reports, he was also terrorizing women.

Speaker 2 Nicholas has quite an alleged spree of assaults here in Rhode Island.

Speaker 29 He does. There are five or six women who alleged that he had assaulted them or threatened them or kept them sort of kidnapped.

Speaker 2 The incidents occurred between March of 2010 and May of 2011. One of them involved someone close to Nicholas, his new wife.

Speaker 2 Nicholas had gotten married, and soon after, police responded to a domestic disturbance call at their apartment.

Speaker 29 The police come in and they noticed that Nick's wife has some abrasions on her face, a redness on her neck, and they decide to arrest him at that point.

Speaker 29 The two officers had to literally pick Nick up and carry him out of the apartment and into the backseat of the cruiser.

Speaker 29 When he gets into the cruiser, he's banging his head against the bars that are protecting the glass. And

Speaker 2 he sounds so unhinged.

Speaker 29 I think at that moment, he was pretty unhinged. The police officers had to use pepper spray to

Speaker 29 get him to calm down.

Speaker 2 Nicholas pleaded no contest to domestic abuse and received probation. The couple later divorced.
As for several of his other alleged victims, They told Mooney they dropped their complaints.

Speaker 2 Do you think they were just scared of Nicholas?

Speaker 29 Oh, absolutely. Some of them have told me that was the reason they chose not to pursue any kind of criminal action against Nick is because they were terrified of him.

Speaker 2 He was free to leave the state. It would be years before he'd be labeled an American fugitive.
And along the way, there would be many more accusations of violence and other crimes.

Speaker 2 For now, his time in Rhode Island had apparently run its course. Another reinvention was in the making.
By 2015, Nicholas had left the state and had a new woman in his sights.

Speaker 2 And she had no idea what was coming.

Speaker 8 I didn't know how I could continue, honestly, to survive.

Speaker 2 After his legal troubles in Rhode Island, Nicholas moved back to Dayton, Ohio. And straight out of his playbook, he appeared to dazzle local lawmakers.
Here he is speaking at a city council meeting.

Speaker 17 I think the most important thing to remember here is that...

Speaker 2 He even started a non-profit to help revitalize downtown Dayton.

Speaker 18 This non-profit was called the Community Progress Institute.

Speaker 2 What was that about?

Speaker 42 Just to raise money to kind of bring back the life, the pizzazz, back to Dayton.

Speaker 2 Catherine Heckendorn had a front-row seat to the new Nicholas who was now using the last name Aliverdian. She met him in 2015.
He was 28 and had joined her church. He immediately piqued her interest.

Speaker 6 And I said, perfect.

Speaker 15 A church guy. Yeah.
This is pretty safe.

Speaker 5 He can't get any safer than this.

Speaker 2 She found him to be kind and caring. Catherine had just been through a traumatic experience with another man and was feeling vulnerable.

Speaker 5 He seemed very sympathetic and

Speaker 11 reassuring that I should feel safe and comfortable and help take care of me.

Speaker 44 Did that make you feel good?

Speaker 19 It did.

Speaker 10 I think that's exactly what I was looking for.

Speaker 2 They started meeting for coffee and dinners. He told her he was a Harvard grad and shared his dreams about his non-profit.
She found herself falling for him.

Speaker 15 There was a mystery that I couldn't put my finger on, which kind of drew me to him.

Speaker 2 After dating for just a few months, to her surprise, he proposed out of the blue one night.

Speaker 10 We're sitting on the couch watching some TV at his place and he just turns to me and says, we should get married.

Speaker 2 I mean, were you shocked?

Speaker 38 I was very shocked.

Speaker 18 I knew everything in me was saying, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 5 Too soon.

Speaker 45 Something's off about this.

Speaker 46 He doesn't even really know me. I don't know him.

Speaker 2 Catherine told him she wasn't ready, but Nicholas persisted.

Speaker 6 I started to get annoyed and frustrated.

Speaker 7 But at the same time I always wanted to be a wife I always wanted to be a mom and I think that desire for those things outweighed the fishiness yeah and common sense

Speaker 2 she finally gave in and they married the very next day at City Hall but it was far from the dream wedding she'd always hoped for and if a diamond is any indication of a man's commitment Catherine thought perhaps the $40 cubic zirconia ring he bought her was a sign that this marriage would be more fleeting than forever.

Speaker 18 I was really bummed. It didn't make sense to me why he couldn't get or afford something nice.

Speaker 2 Turned out the cheap ring was the least of her problems. Catherine says the day after they were married, Nick showed a dark side she'd never seen before.

Speaker 19 I don't remember what the argument was about,

Speaker 45 but it was the very next day where he lays his hands on me for the first time.

Speaker 2 Hits you? Yeah.

Speaker 10 Yes.

Speaker 2 What What do you do? Do you run? Do you say something to him? Do you call the police?

Speaker 19 Um

Speaker 18 try to run, try to call the police, but you know, never be able to because he would chase me down, tackle me, continue to restrain me, hurt me however he could.

Speaker 18 And then he would always manage to get to my phone. and take it so I could never call from for help.

Speaker 2 There was one incident at their house early in their marriage when she was able to call the police.

Speaker 18 So they showed up and arrested him for domestic violence.

Speaker 2 She says one of the arresting officers told her something frightening, that her husband was a registered sex offender.

Speaker 43 And he had warned me that he's dangerous, that he does

Speaker 18 daily rounds on the house. and that he's afraid next time he drives by, I will be either chained up in the basement or dead.

Speaker 2 Catherine confronted Nicholas and he told her it was all a big misunderstanding.

Speaker 7 The girl was, you know, she was crazy making false accusations.

Speaker 2 He became more and more controlling. Catherine says he wouldn't allow her to have a job and forced her to cook and clean and wear skirts with pantyhose.

Speaker 2 Was he kind of looking for like a 50s housewife from you?

Speaker 47 Yes.

Speaker 45 Yeah, that's what I felt like.

Speaker 44 To stay home all day, every day, make, you know, take care of the house, make sure he had food when he got home.

Speaker 2 She said image was everything to Nicholas.

Speaker 18 He always preferred like a bow tie.

Speaker 6 I think he was looking for something very like sophisticated and strong enough to make him stand out.

Speaker 2 He had a taste for the finer things and Catherine says he was using her money to pay for it all.

Speaker 18 I see him spending it on lavish, expensive meals, clothes, like first-class flights,

Speaker 45 five-star hotels.

Speaker 2 Catherine says the spending started when Nicholas discovered she had a savings account, money her parents had put away for her from the time she was little.

Speaker 2 He asked her for money to fund his non-profit called the Community Progress Institute.

Speaker 18 And he said that if I don't give him money, his business is going to collapse and we won't be able to eat and that'll be my fault.

Speaker 38 So I gave him about $10,000

Speaker 46 and as time went on he said, we need more.

Speaker 2 She says the nonprofit accomplished nothing. And even more outrageous, she says he used it to rip off school children and their families.

Speaker 2 He sent out scholarship applications to all the Dayton schools for, I think it was like a $20,000 or $40 application fee.

Speaker 38 They can enter for a chance for a scholarship, which was going to be like $5,000, which

Speaker 5 no scholarship.

Speaker 2 And she discovered his business wasn't the only thing that was fake. So was his Harvard degree.
He'd only taken a course at the extension school. So he lied.
He did.

Speaker 2 She felt helpless as she watched him drain her life savings. How much did you end up giving him?

Speaker 42 Close to $55,000.

Speaker 2 The more he lived it up, the more she lived in constant fear of his explosive temper. Sometimes when they'd argue, she says he would lock her in the bathroom.

Speaker 16 How long would he leave you in there for?

Speaker 21 The longest time was about two days.

Speaker 18 He always made it my fault.

Speaker 44 And after a while,

Speaker 18 I think I started believing that.

Speaker 48 Yeah.

Speaker 2 She says the worst of it would come when she refused him in the bedroom.

Speaker 19 Even though we were married, he would rape me.

Speaker 2 Did you feel just like a prisoner?

Speaker 24 Yeah.

Speaker 48 Um,

Speaker 11 I'm sorry.

Speaker 10 I didn't know it was possible to be so alone.

Speaker 8 I didn't know how I could continue, honestly, to survive.

Speaker 2 Catherine knew she had to get out of the marriage, but she also knew Nicholas wouldn't make it easy. She needed proof of his abuse.
This is your big moment. You've got your phone ready to go.

Speaker 2 You're going to secretly record him.

Speaker 24 Yeah.

Speaker 24 What are you hiding from me? Give me your phone.

Speaker 24 Give me your phone.

Speaker 24 Stop ignoring me!

Speaker 2 After Catherine Heckendorn called the police on her husband, she wondered if it was somehow her fault.

Speaker 2 She bailed him out and withdrew her complaint. She kept hoping things would get better.

Speaker 10 That was rough because each time then I got this false hope that the stranger is gonna go away and Nick's gonna come back.

Speaker 2 But she says he never did, and she wanted everyone to know the polished church-going man was all an act.

Speaker 2 So she decided to gather evidence to prove it. You're gonna secretly record him

Speaker 2 to try to show the world the hell that you've been living through.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Can you play some of that for us today? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Give me your phone.

Speaker 2 Give me your phone.

Speaker 2 Stop ignoring me!

Speaker 2 What are you doing?

Speaker 16 I'm getting out of this negative atmosphere.

Speaker 2 No! Stop it!

Speaker 23 No!

Speaker 23 No!

Speaker 23 No!

Speaker 49 Stop!

Speaker 2 I see you shaking right now.

Speaker 2 Did that take you back to that place?

Speaker 11 Yeah, very much so.

Speaker 2 She immediately sent the recording to her father for safekeeping. It would take two more months before she finally had the courage to walk out the door.
She got on her knees and she prayed.

Speaker 11 Lord, let me know in a clear, distinct manner that I may act upon it.

Speaker 46 And immediately,

Speaker 46 get out.

Speaker 48 Go.

Speaker 44 So I grabbed my purse.

Speaker 2 She left everything else behind, even her beloved dogs. Catherine needed to move quickly.

Speaker 5 So I get in my car and start driving and through his GPS tracking, he discovers that and proceeds to pursue me.

Speaker 2 He catches up to you and is chasing you. Yeah.

Speaker 15 And so I'm not going to be able to do that. Are you terrified?

Speaker 48 Yeah.

Speaker 47 I had

Speaker 15 run through a red light and kind of like head-on kind of T-bone another car.

Speaker 2 He's there, he sees this happen?

Speaker 10 Yeah, so as soon as he sees that I get in a car crash, he leaves.

Speaker 11 He doesn't want to be around when the police show up.

Speaker 2 Luckily, no one was hurt. The next day, she called a lawyer and filed for divorce.
How was Nicholas handling all this?

Speaker 43 Not good. You know, making threats, being irate with either me or my parents.

Speaker 2 But getting a divorce finalized, no surprise to Catherine, would be a big challenge.

Speaker 2 Nicholas wouldn't show up to court, and when the court officers tried to serve him the divorce papers, it appeared he was playing tricks.

Speaker 45 One of the officers said, I'm pretty sure that was him wearing a disguise, you know, with the hat, head down low.

Speaker 18 He just kind of disappeared.

Speaker 19 They couldn't find him.

Speaker 2 They eventually tracked him down. The judge ordered Nicholas to hand over the dogs and leave their house so Catherine could get her stuff.

Speaker 43 I opened the door and there's...

Speaker 15 A gun sitting on the sofa.

Speaker 2 A gun.

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 18 As if Nick put it there to say, I may not physically be here, but I will still make you miserable.

Speaker 2 Catherine says despite her claims that Nicholas abused and sexually assaulted her, she was too afraid of him to take legal action.

Speaker 2 But she soon learned powerful law enforcement agencies were investigating him for a different kind of crime.

Speaker 41 Less than a month after I had left him,

Speaker 6 the

Speaker 45 treasury or the FBI, or I think it was both, came knocking on my door.

Speaker 41 wanting any information I could give them on Nick.

Speaker 2 Did they explain why they were there?

Speaker 41 For fraud, and they did not go in details, just for fraud.

Speaker 2 Catherine found out later the feds were accusing Nicholas of ripping off his Ohio foster parents, a loving couple who had taken him in when he was about to age out of the system.

Speaker 2 Catherine remembers them fondly.

Speaker 43 We attended the same church here in Dayton, Ohio.

Speaker 42 They were lovely people, great people.

Speaker 18 And they seemed, you know, so caring towards Nick.

Speaker 46 And

Speaker 6 I was really happy for Nick that he had them because it didn't seem like he had that family support biologically.

Speaker 2 Nicholas's foster father told Dateline he reported the fraud to local authorities.

Speaker 2 According to one police report, 10 credit card accounts were opened fraudulently with an estimated $200,000 in charges.

Speaker 2 From everything Catherine's heard and her own experience with Nicholas, she wasn't surprised by those allegations.

Speaker 38 I do believe he was starting to swindle them and take from them while we were still together.

Speaker 2 As the FBI was looking into Nicholas for fraud, his name popped up somewhere else. Rhode Island State Police Detective Connor O'Donnell was doing a routine check on registered sex offenders.

Speaker 12 Nick's name came across my desk, just a regular compliance check.

Speaker 2 Nicholas was in the national system for that attack on Mary in the college basement. Something in Nicholas's file caught the detective's attention.

Speaker 12 Nick had a warrant for his arrest, a technical violation on a domestic violence charge.

Speaker 12 We went to his last known residence to ensure that he lived at that address, and we were going to arrest him on his outstanding warrant.

Speaker 2 Was he there?

Speaker 12 No.

Speaker 2 Nicholas had moved out and because he was a registered sex offender, he was required to notify the state of a change of address. He hadn't, so a Rhode Island judge issued a new warrant for his arrest.

Speaker 2 Where is he? Do you have any idea?

Speaker 12 No, we didn't. We put his picture and his warrant up on Rhode Island's Most Wanted.

Speaker 2 Did you get any leads once you put it up there?

Speaker 12 It didn't take too long. We got a phone call from Nick.

Speaker 2 From Nick? Yeah. Detective O'Donnell says Nicholas found out he was on Rhode Island's Most Wanted list and was furious.

Speaker 12 Claimed he had moved out of the country and then proceeded to lecture me about how

Speaker 12 I didn't know the general laws in the state of Rhode Island and that by moving out of this country, he didn't have to notify of a change of address.

Speaker 2 What did you think of his tone that it seems like he knew better than you?

Speaker 12 He was arrogant, egotistical. You were beneath him.
He used big words to make himself seem like he knew what he was talking about.

Speaker 2 The detective was now determined to find him. He contacted the U.S.
Marshals who began a search. They checked his passport and confirmed Nicholas had left the country on a one-way ticket.

Speaker 12 He had, in fact,

Speaker 12 left on an outbound flight out of an airport in in New York to Ireland.

Speaker 2 Following that trail would lead us to a hotel in Scotland, and that bizarre interview with the man who insists he's not Nicholas.

Speaker 2 What do you say to people who say this is all an act?

Speaker 49 Oh, Ico.

Speaker 24 Andrew, that's a right blade.

Speaker 25 That's a right low blade.

Speaker 2 By the time Nicholas was 31 years old, he'd been living a dual life. On the one hand, he was highly regarded by Rhode Island state legislators for trying to reform the foster care system.

Speaker 2 On the other, he had two ex-wives with restraining orders against him, was a convicted sex offender, and was wanted by Rhode Island state police.

Speaker 2 In 2018, he'd left the country, but his past had followed him.

Speaker 2 While overseas, he hired attorney Jeff Pine to handle the failure to to register as a sex offender charge.

Speaker 50 Which is a serious case, obviously. It's a felony.

Speaker 2 Nicholas had been right about the law. He didn't have to register since he'd left the country.
So Pine was able to get the case dismissed. But still, he was careful when dealing with his client.

Speaker 50 With Nicholas, you always have a... a shade of doubt about what he's telling you.

Speaker 2 Why did you have that shade of doubt?

Speaker 50 Just because he is who he is. He's very obsessive, very persistent, and manipulative.
And so I had to be careful that I wasn't being manipulated.

Speaker 2 Nicholas asked him to do one more thing. He told him he'd gotten wind that an FBI agent was looking for him, and he wanted to know why.
So the attorney made a call to the agent.

Speaker 50 And I asked what's the nature of the charge, and they told me it was a significant credit card fraud, misappropriation of funds, obtaining money under false pretenses, that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 It was the case involving Nicholas's foster parents.

Speaker 50 The agent did confirm that there was a warrant for him.

Speaker 1 A federal warrant.

Speaker 24 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But Nicholas was not about to turn himself in. This has become a game of cat and mouse between the alleged con man and federal law enforcement.

Speaker 50 Yeah, they're going to have to expend a lot of resources and man hours to bring him to justice.

Speaker 2 And Nicholas had no idea yet another law enforcement agency was joining the chase.

Speaker 17 He is someone that needs to be put on trial for rape.

Speaker 2 In Utah, a county attorney named David Levitt was looking into old rape cases that had never been investigated.

Speaker 17 We had sexual assault kits that had been sitting on police shelves for years.

Speaker 2 It infuriated him that women had filed complaints, subjected themselves to rape exams, but police never followed up. When he took office in 2018, Levitt vowed to change that.

Speaker 17 So we engaged in a partnership between the United States Department of Justice and the state of Utah to test all of these old rape kits.

Speaker 2 Did you start getting hits?

Speaker 17 We got a hit,

Speaker 17 and that hit was a hit for a registered sex offender in the state of Ohio.

Speaker 2 That sex offender was none other than Nicholas Rossi. His DNA was in the system from that assault on fellow college student, Mary Grabinski.

Speaker 2 Nicholas had been convicted of attacking her a decade earlier. That was the same year Nicholas allegedly attacked the woman in Utah, but her case was never investigated.

Speaker 17 In 2008,

Speaker 17 the victim in this case said that she had been raped and she voluntarily went through the rape exam and the police were called.

Speaker 17 The case died at the police station and was never sent to the county attorney's office.

Speaker 2 So 11 years later in 2019, an investigator reached out to the woman. Her story was eerily familiar.
She said she met Nicholas Rossi on MySpace.

Speaker 17 And that two weeks later, they met in person and they began a sexual relationship that lasted for a brief period of time.

Speaker 17 At the same time, Nicholas Rossi was taking money from her with the promise that he would pay it back and never did.

Speaker 2 So she said she went over to his apartment. She wanted her money back and she wanted to end the relationship.

Speaker 17 He shut the door and began to just kind of put pressure on her to have sex. He took her clothes off and raped her.

Speaker 2 David Levitt had heard enough. He charged Nicholas with rape.
Now his investigators had to find him. But arresting Nicholas Rossi wouldn't be so easy.

Speaker 17 No, it wouldn't be easy at all.

Speaker 2 This brings us back to the question we asked earlier. Why would Nicholas fake his death? Well, with law enforcement from Utah, Rhode Island, and the FBI chasing him, Dying would be a perfect way out.

Speaker 2 And remember his press release saying he was dying of cancer? A lot of people bought it, but not everyone. That press release landed on reporter Tom Mooney's desk.

Speaker 2 Back then, he didn't know much about Nicholas.

Speaker 29 And the press release indicated, well, this is a news story that we should be writing about.

Speaker 2 It described Nicholas as a local hero for his work on foster care reform. Mooney wasn't inclined to cover the story.
Then his phone rang. It was Nicholas.

Speaker 29 He was very polite, very respectful, told me why he thought this was newsworthy.

Speaker 36 And I said, okay, well, let me think about it.

Speaker 2 Tom says he came up with an idea and brought it to his editor.

Speaker 29 I said, why don't I go with Nick Aliverti into one of his chemo treatments,

Speaker 29 capture this scene, this young man who's ill. Maybe it's a human interest story of a guy who once, you know, once upon a time indeed, was well known.

Speaker 2 But Nicholas, who had so badly wanted his story covered, was suddenly evasive.

Speaker 29 He said, no, you can't talk to me. You can't come with me.
I'm not in Rhode Island.

Speaker 47 And I said, oh, well, where are you?

Speaker 29 And he didn't want to tell me where he was. So I'm thinking that is awful strange.
And at that point, I really just did not want to do the story.

Speaker 2 But other news outlets did. And Nicholas appeared to spend his remaining days tying up loose ends.
I don't see him for a while, but he would call me.

Speaker 2 Representative Raymond Hull says Nicholas always claimed to be in a different country.

Speaker 31 First, he's in France, and then all of a sudden I get another call. I think he's in Russia, and the phone's crackly and everything to that effect.

Speaker 2 How sad were you for him when he tells you that he's doing it?

Speaker 31 You know, because you have to understand I like the kid. And I said, Nicholas, stop, stop.

Speaker 31 You're gonna, you'll make it through this, you know.

Speaker 2 Nicholas appeared to be calling everyone he knew in Rhode Island, including former Representative Brian Coogan. By then, Coogan had learned about Nicholas's criminal past.

Speaker 2 Law enforcement had reached out looking for Nicholas and told Coogan he was a fugitive. But Nicholas didn't know that.

Speaker 30 And his voice was getting raspier and raspier. And he's like, Rap, I'm dying, I'm dying, I'm dying.
And this is probably the last time I'm talking.

Speaker 30 I just want to call and tell you I love you, and I appreciate you trying to adopt me. And I feel like your son.

Speaker 30 But I was getting mad. And I got frustrated.
And the very last time I talked to him, I said, listen, you cockeroach. I said, cocker roaches don't die.
I said, you are not dying. You're a con artist.

Speaker 30 Oh, my goodness. You're a predator.

Speaker 2 Of course, Brian was right. Nicholas wasn't dying.
And now law enforcement was catching up to him. He was running out of options, but in true Nicholas fashion, he came up with a doozy.

Speaker 2 You're being told he's going under the name Arthur Knight. How shocked were you by that?

Speaker 17 It certainly isn't a case that you see every day.

Speaker 2 That is a crazy twist.

Speaker 23 It It is.

Speaker 2 It was 2020, and the news was all over Rhode Island that Nicholas Aliverdian was dead at the age of 32.

Speaker 2 Before his death, Nicholas had campaigned for journalists and lawmakers to pay tribute to him, and it had worked.

Speaker 34 House Resolution, expressing condolences on the passing of Nicholas Eliverian.

Speaker 2 But not with everyone.

Speaker 29 Some news outlets did write that story.

Speaker 2 But of course, the Providence Journal didn't run it. Nonetheless, the story was spreading.
When Detective Connor O'Donnell heard of Nicholas's untimely death, his BS radar went off.

Speaker 2 Remember, he'd been searching for Nicholas two years earlier on the outstanding warrant for failure to register as a sex offender. He immediately started making calls.

Speaker 12 We made numerous attempts through Interpol, numerous countries for any proof of death. All were negative.
Nothing came back.

Speaker 2 O'Donnell was onto something. He was contacted by a Utah investigator who told him not only was Nicholas alive, he was also wanted by the feds.

Speaker 12 Through speaking with that investigator, I learned that

Speaker 12 Nick was being sought by the FBI for fraud.

Speaker 2 The alleged credit card fraud involving Nicholas's former foster parents.

Speaker 2 As Detective O'Donnell continued to poke around, he learned that Nicholas's widow was making arrangements for a memorial service.

Speaker 2 That was when he contacted Father Healy and told him Nicholas was actually alive.

Speaker 20 That he's a fugitive wanted on financial and violent crimes.

Speaker 2 Detective O'Donnell asked Father Healy to cancel the service, but keep the reason a secret.

Speaker 20 I said, okay, I'll come up with some convenient excuse, which I did.

Speaker 2 You had to be a little untruthful to her.

Speaker 20 Correct. I had to go to confession after all that, yes.

Speaker 2 He said when Louise, the woman claiming to be his widow, heard the mass was off, she did not take it well.

Speaker 20 I've got a lot of emails that were kind of full of rage, upset, and anger at me. It was clear it was somebody who was very angry.

Speaker 2 You were bamboozled, Father.

Speaker 20 In a sense, yes.

Speaker 29 It's the first time.

Speaker 20 in my life, in my priesthood, that somebody has tried to have a funeral for somebody who's not dead.

Speaker 2 Turns out Father Healy was one of many priests communicating with Louise about a memorial mass for Nicholas. Detective O'Donnell had been tracking all of them.

Speaker 2 So you had managed to shut them all down.

Speaker 12 Yes, it wasn't easy, but yes.

Speaker 2 Meanwhile, the FBI was apparently reaching out to anyone who might know Nicholas's whereabouts. Brian Coogan was in his truck when his phone rang.

Speaker 30 It says, FBI Utah. I was rattled.
I pulled over in the parking lot and he said, this is special agent so-and-so from Utah FBI. He says, do you know Nicholas Aliverdian, Nicholas Rossi?

Speaker 30 I said, yeah, I actually know him very well. He goes, well, we're looking for him.
Do you know where he is?

Speaker 30 I said, well, didn't you know he died? And he said,

Speaker 30 he's not dead. And I sent him all the emails that I had, all the phone numbers, the pictures before I hung up.
I said, you know, agent,

Speaker 30 You're the FBI. How come you can't catch him?

Speaker 2 The agent said they'd been trying to locate Nicholas through the internet with no luck.

Speaker 30 He says, we would track him through an email to his IP address.

Speaker 2 But he says the agent told him Nicholas the computer whiz sent them in circles, never in the location that matched the IP address.

Speaker 30 He says, let me tell you, this kid is so good. One of the best I've ever seen.

Speaker 2 But as good as Nicholas was at dodging them, his time on the lamb was running out. Law enforcement finally found a way to track him down.
The authorities were closing in on Nick?

Speaker 29 They were, I think it was just a matter of when they were going to grab him.

Speaker 2 In December 2021, about two years after Nicholas supposedly died, they finally caught a break.

Speaker 2 Law enforcement sources say Nicholas, the computer genius, had made a mistake. He unknowingly gave up his overseas address while online.

Speaker 2 The trail led authorities to the intensive care unit at this Glasgow hospital. If they had the right man, of all things, it was a severe case of COVID that now had him trapped.

Speaker 17 And that resulted in the Scottish authorities arresting him.

Speaker 2 That is a crazy twist. It is.
It's fortunate.

Speaker 2 Innerpool shared mugshots,

Speaker 2 photos of his tattoos and fingerprints with local police so they could make an on-the-spot ID.

Speaker 17 When the Scottish authorities looked at him in a hospital room in Scotland, they were were satisfied that Nicholas Rossi was, in fact, the same person that is wanted in the state of Utah.

Speaker 2 But not so fast.

Speaker 2 The man in the hospital insisted he was not Nicholas. He said his name was Arthur Knight, a law-abiding British businessman.

Speaker 25 I am not a fugitive, nor am I a poor man.

Speaker 2 Who on earth was Arthur Knight?

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Speaker 2 Arthur Knight was determined to prove he was not American fugitive Nicholas Rossi.

Speaker 2 He insisted he was just a simple English gent.

Speaker 23 To be accused of rape, it could happen to anyone.

Speaker 2 While out on bail, Arthur organized his own press tour from his flat in Glasgow.

Speaker 2 He used a wheelchair and wore an oxygen mask, he said, because of the effects of COVID.

Speaker 14 Are you that man?

Speaker 4 Are you Nicholas Rossi?

Speaker 25 I can veritably say that I have not ever once done any of the acts that you just described.

Speaker 2 We came to Scotland to get to the bottom of this mystery. Was Arthur Knight the victim of a colossal case of mistaken identity? Or was he trying to pull off his biggest con yet?

Speaker 2 We caught up with investigative reporter Jane McSorley. I've been a journalist over 30 years and I have never met a man like him.

Speaker 2 For her Audible podcast called I Am Not Nicholas, she got up close and personal with Arthur when he and his wife Miranda invited her over for dinner. What is it like walking into their flat?

Speaker 2 It's a fairly small flat. I was welcomed very, very warmly by Miranda.
Arthur's there in a wheelchair, you know, with the mask and the oxygen tank and everything, but he's dressed up to the nines.

Speaker 2 Are you the whole time looking at him, her, scanning the room for clues? I was just engrossed by him, really, because, I mean, everybody's talking about this man.

Speaker 2 And here I am, as close as I am now to you. You know, he was such a nice guy.
I thought, how can he potentially be this Nicholas Rossi that alleged to be, you know, a rapist.

Speaker 2 Jane knew there was one sure way to find out. After dining on Miranda's champagne chicken dinner, she asked Arthur to roll up his sleeves to see if he had the same tattoos as Nicholas Rossi.

Speaker 2 And it was after I'd been there at least a couple of hours. And straight away he agreed.
So I said, would you pull back your sleeves?

Speaker 2 Not only that, he pulled up mugshots that had Nicholas Rossi's tattooed arms on his big screen TV.

Speaker 2 He was clearly prepared for Jane's question.

Speaker 2 Is your heart kind of just pounding? You know, as you're waiting for this

Speaker 47 moment?

Speaker 2 It felt like it was... It just felt like it was slow-moving.
He rolled up his left sleeve as far as his elbow. She couldn't believe what she was seeing or not seeing.
I had my glasses on as well.

Speaker 2 I mean, I was completely in awe of this left forearm that up on the screen was like completely tattooed and now with in front of me had no tattoos and no scarring whatsoever of tattoo removal.

Speaker 2 She even checked to make sure he hadn't covered them with makeup. It was quite a moment.
So I thought this man in front of me was Arthur Knight, and the authorities had made a mistake.

Speaker 2 And I was like, good God.

Speaker 2 You know, because he's so adamant. That was just the beginning of Jane's reporting.
There was so much more to uncover. This was a roller coaster for you.
It was.

Speaker 2 The story's stranger than fiction, but that's what's great about it.

Speaker 2 It was a roller coaster for us, too.

Speaker 2 After yet another press conference, Arthur, along with his wife Miranda, spoke to us remotely. I know you have a lot to say, which is great.

Speaker 25 I want to be as honest and truthful as possible.

Speaker 49 It's very important that our story is heard.

Speaker 25 I was adopted.

Speaker 2 Arthur told us he began life as an orphan in Ireland.

Speaker 4 I grew up all over.

Speaker 25 Dublin, Belfast.

Speaker 2 He said he later moved to London and through grit and determination worked his way up the corporate ladder in communications.

Speaker 2 He and Miranda said they met at a London art museum in 2011.

Speaker 49 We just struck up a conversation, you know, exchanged kind of contact detail, but I was not, you know, good friends at the time.

Speaker 2 They said they were friends at first. She was in a relationship and busy with her career.

Speaker 49 So previously I was, you know, an executive and I've worked in account management.

Speaker 2 But several years later they said they met up again. Romance blossomed.

Speaker 49 We fell in love. We love each other very much, deeply in love.

Speaker 2 And in February of 2020, the same month that Nicholas Aliverdian supposedly died, Arthur and Miranda got married.

Speaker 49 Nicholas Rosie or Aliverdian or whatever had died. We were on our honeymoon.

Speaker 2 Less than two years later, their world fell apart. It was December of 2021 when Arthur was hospitalized with COVID.
Miranda said a nurse told her he probably wouldn't make it.

Speaker 49 And I was literally in tears. I was in shock, and the world just caving in for me.

Speaker 2 She says Arthur was in a medically induced coma and put on a ventilator. After three months, though, he woke up.
So Arthur makes it through this. But your whole world has been turned upside down.

Speaker 49 I was with him in his room and two police constables came into the room and I looked up and I thought they had walked into the wrong room.

Speaker 2 What'd they tell you?

Speaker 49 They said that it would be sensible for me to actually leave the room because of what was going to be said and Arthur said no, you know my wife knows everything. There's no secrets between us.

Speaker 29 Secrets.

Speaker 2 Can you also tell us what happened in that room and why they told you they were there?

Speaker 49 I just you know remember words of 2008, Utah, rape, America, and it all didn't make sense.

Speaker 2 She heard police calling Arthur Nicholas Rossi. They said that international law enforcement agencies were trying to bring him back to the United States.

Speaker 25 I made it clear I'm not Nicholas Rossi, but people choose to believe what they want.

Speaker 2 Were you read your rights? Were you handcuffed?

Speaker 25 I was told I was under arrest. for rape in Utah and that's all I was told.

Speaker 2 Once he left the hospital, he faced a judge in an extradition hearing where he proclaimed he was not Nicholas Rossi.

Speaker 2 So now the judge would have to rule first on his identity before deciding if he should be extradited.

Speaker 36 Are you losing confidence, sir?

Speaker 2 Months went by with hearing after hearing, but no ruling from the judge. Nicholas, you've completely failed to pull the wheel over the eye.

Speaker 4 Sir, how can you possibly claim not to be Nicholas Rossi now? Are you Arthur Knight

Speaker 4 or Nicholas Rossi?

Speaker 2 He made front-page news a lot.

Speaker 25 We were once a normal family, but thanks to the media, our lives have been interrupted. And we'd like privacy, and I would like to go back to being a normal husband.

Speaker 25 But I can't because I can't breathe. I can't walk.

Speaker 25 People say that's an act. Let me try to stand up.
Let me try to stand up.

Speaker 25 Exactly.

Speaker 25 Exactly. So let's.

Speaker 2 When Arthur fell back into his chair,

Speaker 2 it was hard not to wonder.

Speaker 2 Was it all an act?

Speaker 25 This is what people do to me. They call me a liar.
They say this oxygen is

Speaker 25 a prop.

Speaker 16 It's the same guy. It's definitely the same carn artist who's taken on various aliases.

Speaker 2 As the court weighed the evidence in Arthur's identity case, another story emerged. We tracked down this woman who had a whole new name for Arthur.

Speaker 16 Timothy Arthur Nicholas Knight Brown.

Speaker 2 And a whole new story.

Speaker 16 Yeah, it's fake social media accounts where he was tweeting about me. That's when I knew 100% he was a carn artist.

Speaker 2 Reporters in the U.S. and Scotland continued to chase the Arthur Knight story.
Was he or wasn't he an American fugitive? That led us and other journalists to Canada.

Speaker 2 and a TV personality named Nafsika Entipas who had done business with them.

Speaker 16 All of a sudden, I started getting emails, Facebook messages, Instagram messages, LinkedIn messages.

Speaker 2 From me included.

Speaker 16 Yeah, from you too. And I was in shock and actually I was kind of embarrassed that I went through that.

Speaker 2 In 2020, Nafsika was looking for help marketing her vegan cheese company called Nafsika's Garden.

Speaker 23 Oh, wow, this is so good.

Speaker 2 And promoting the fourth season of her A ⁇ E television show, Plant-Based, by Nafsika.

Speaker 2 She scanned through resumes on Upwork, an online marketplace for freelancers, and found a man named Nicholas Brown.

Speaker 16 But his full name was Timothy Arthur Nicholas Knight Brown.

Speaker 2 She says he was highly rated on the site. Tell us about his resume.

Speaker 23 What was on it?

Speaker 16 Harvard graduate, experience with PR, marketing, everything I was looking for. He had it on there and he was an international lawyer, apparently.
I kind of thought he was the whole package.

Speaker 16 And I spoke to him, and I hired him him the same day.

Speaker 2 What kind of accent does he have?

Speaker 16 He was British, but it seemed like sometimes he maybe tried to throw in some Irish phrases.

Speaker 2 Since he told her he was living with his wife in Ireland, that made sense. Nafsika agreed to pay him a fee of around $7,000 a month.
She was based in Montreal, so they never met in person.

Speaker 16 Every time I would tell him, Nicholas, where is the work? Show me what you've done so far. He would either come up with an excuse or he would like send me a picture of

Speaker 16 something like

Speaker 2 his dog.

Speaker 2 But it quickly became obvious the man she hired from Upwork was more like no work.

Speaker 2 She says he always had an excuse for why nothing was getting done.

Speaker 16 So one time he was in the hospital and then another month his wife was in the hospital. I think she had amendicitis.

Speaker 16 Then his dog was in the hospital.

Speaker 2 At one point, he pitched an idea about creating a new company with Nefsika. He and his wife Miranda would be on the board.

Speaker 16 So I asked him, I said, are you trying to take over all my companies? What's happening here? He goes, no, no, no, no, no. I just want to oversee what's happening.

Speaker 2 So she agreed, but she never gave him access to her bank accounts or credit cards. She did, however, give him a copy of her passport.
He said he needed it for the paperwork.

Speaker 16 At first, I was going along with it because I said, okay, I'm going to see what he does, see if he'll actually start working.

Speaker 2 But again, nothing. So after paying him nearly $30,000 over four months with no work completed, Nafsika cut him off.

Speaker 16 I terminated his access to my website, to my

Speaker 16 his emails and his wife emails.

Speaker 2 You didn't give him any warning.

Speaker 16 That's it. No warning because I realized that that's at this point

Speaker 16 that there's something off about this guy. I terminated any access he had to anything.
And then it was like a few minutes later and he texted me, what's going on?

Speaker 16 Miranda and I can't get on to our emails.

Speaker 2 he didn't take this well.

Speaker 16 He got very aggressive. He started sending a lot of messages,

Speaker 16 phoning. I wasn't answering my phone.

Speaker 2 When she didn't respond, she says he sent threatening texts about a contract that she says never existed.

Speaker 2 If she didn't pay him about $40,000 or a reasonable counteroffer, he would ruin her reputation.

Speaker 2 He had created a fraud alert website using her passport photo like a mugshot and was planning to tell the world her company was a sham.

Speaker 2 In this text, he says, You have 24 hours to propose a settlement or legal and PR hell will be unleashed against you and Nafseka's garden. Plant-based by Nafseka, more like plant-faced.

Speaker 16 I was very, very nervous because I didn't know how this would affect my brand that I was just launching, had just recently launched at the time and my family. And, you know,

Speaker 16 how crazy is he? He's gonna go after my kids.

Speaker 2 The threatening texts kept coming and coming. Nafsika didn't give in to his scare tactics and told him he was officially fired.

Speaker 16 As soon as I told him he's terminated, that's when everything went live.

Speaker 2 All of his smear tactics went live.

Speaker 16 Yes, he had fake social media accounts where he was tweeting about me that my vegan cheese is fake. It's not really vegan.
I mean, that's when I knew 100% he was a carn artist. So

Speaker 16 I basically took action. I started calling the police in every country.
I filed all those fraud reports.

Speaker 16 I hired a private investigator in Dublin to track him down.

Speaker 2 But the private investigator found nothing. Two years later, Nafsika found out why.
That's when the media started calling her.

Speaker 2 She learned the man she'd been dealing with wasn't in Ireland, and he wasn't Nicholas Brown, the name she knew him by. He was living in Scotland, claiming to be Arthur Knight.

Speaker 16 He's finally finally been arrested.

Speaker 2 Then she got another call. It said Utah FBI on her caller ID.

Speaker 16 They tell me, tell me what you got,

Speaker 16 and I'll tell you what I have. And we swapped, you know, information.

Speaker 2 She told them she would help any way she could. How badly do you want to bring this man down?

Speaker 16 I want him behind bars big time because not only of what he's done to me, but what he's done to so many people.

Speaker 2 But justice was a long way off. The Scottish court still had not decided if Arthur Knight was Nicholas Rossi.

Speaker 2 Dateline had a lot more questions for him. Did you sexually assault anyone? Did you kidnap anyone? Did you defraud anyone?

Speaker 2 More than four months had passed since Arthur Knight's arrest in a Scottish hospital. He was still out on bail, waiting for a judge to decide if he was telling the truth about his identity.

Speaker 24 I want your documentary.

Speaker 2 He called another press conference, this time to introduce his new defense attorney, Craig Johnson, who'd flown all the way from Utah to Scotland.

Speaker 2 Do you believe Arthur Knight is Arthur Knight and that he is innocent of all the allegations that are being leveled against him?

Speaker 28 I do, and I don't... take that statement lightly.
Again, I wouldn't have flown out here 24 hours ago for this purpose to stand up for him if I didn't.

Speaker 2 Johnson says Arthur reached out to him, probably not by coincidence, since Johnson once worked for David Levitt.

Speaker 2 Johnson told us he left the prosecutor's office after a dispute with Levitt, but says that had nothing to do with him taking on Arthur Knight as a client.

Speaker 2 Still, he was quick to criticize his former boss.

Speaker 28 There's been such a rush to judgment by Mr. Levitt.
in his office coordinating with other authorities. That is our concern.

Speaker 2 Johnson says David Levitt crossed the line speaking so openly about the allegations of rape and fake identity against his client.

Speaker 28 It's very concerning to me when the head law enforcement official in Utah County, my former boss David Levitt, has been making a lot of interviews and statements about my client, which frankly poisoned the jury pool.

Speaker 2 Levitt disagrees, saying he's been careful not to discuss specifics of the case. We pressed Johnson on why he was so sure Arthur Knight was telling the truth about his identity.

Speaker 2 Has he shown you his face?

Speaker 28 Yes, I've seen his face without his mask.

Speaker 2 He said he'd also seen what Nicholas Rossi looked like.

Speaker 2 And you believe when you see his face that that is not the same man?

Speaker 28 I don't believe it's the same man.

Speaker 25 And what I'm trying to explain.

Speaker 2 But when I spoke with Arthur and asked to have a look, would you take your mask off for one second just to show us your face?

Speaker 25 I can.

Speaker 25 When I get to my bed, yes.

Speaker 2 But can you just show us now?

Speaker 25 Well, I'm hypoxic, so

Speaker 25 I'm telling you, yes, I will, but must I do it now?

Speaker 2 He never took it off. And he didn't have answers to a lot of our questions either.
Did you say you were adopted?

Speaker 25 I was, yes.

Speaker 2 At what age?

Speaker 25 I am not certain.

Speaker 2 He was also evasive when we asked him if we could see his birth certificate.

Speaker 2 I'm just looking for ways, you know, that you can back up some of what you're saying, just to put people's minds at ease.

Speaker 25 Well, which minds?

Speaker 2 For one, the FBI. The FBI is investigating you.
You're being looked at for kidnapping, sexual assault, fraud in multiple states.

Speaker 25 Incorrect. David Levitt has said those things.
The FBI have said nothing.

Speaker 2 The FBI is investigating you, though.

Speaker 3 Me?

Speaker 2 Yes, they're looking into you and how you might fit into all of this.

Speaker 25 No, they are not.

Speaker 2 The FBI rarely comments on active investigations. But remember, several people we interviewed told us the FBI contacted and questioned them, including Nafsika Entipas.

Speaker 25 Nafsika, she was my client.

Speaker 2 When we asked Arthur about Nafsika, he seemed rattled and denied her claims that he stole from her and failed to do any work. Nafsika says that you scammed her out of tens of thousands of dollars.

Speaker 25 Correction. Nafsika paid me for work

Speaker 25 that was performed.

Speaker 25 I did not scam her out of money.

Speaker 2 Nafsika says that you are a con man.

Speaker 25 I'm sorry she feels that way.

Speaker 25 say the opposite. She called us Jules.

Speaker 2 What do you say to someone who believes that you are Nicholas Alaverde and?

Speaker 26 I am not Andrea.

Speaker 25 I am not Nicholas Alaverde, and I do not know how to make this clear.

Speaker 2 What do you say to people who say these are crocodile tears? He's putting on a show. This is all an act.

Speaker 49 Oh,

Speaker 24 Andrea. No.
That's a low blow.

Speaker 25 blow. That's a right blow blow.
Crocodile tears? Do you think I can...

Speaker 25 I don't believe that.

Speaker 2 His wife Miranda says he's 100% telling the truth. If he was a serial rapist, she would know.

Speaker 49 My husband has never ever done anything which has hurt me. You know, he hasn't,

Speaker 49 you know, assaulted me. I do know the truth.
I know he's innocent. I know he's not a rapist, 100%.

Speaker 2 Where does this go from here? For Arthur, for the both of you, what's next?

Speaker 49 I believe that, you know, we will fight this together and there will be a time where we will crack open a bottle of champagne and we will go back to our normal lives as a normal couple with our beautiful dogs and restart our lives.

Speaker 2 But first he has to clear his name and he has a lot to answer for.

Speaker 2 Since his arrest, at least three more women have come forward with accusations of sexual assault, including a woman in the UK. Did you sexually assault anyone? Did you kidnap anyone?

Speaker 2 Did you defraud anyone?

Speaker 11 What?

Speaker 25 No, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 He says this whole misunderstanding is the handiwork of David Levitt.

Speaker 25 David Levitt is a con man.

Speaker 25 David Levitt is a monster.

Speaker 17 Sometimes life is stranger than fiction.

Speaker 2 The dispute with the prosecutor was about to heat up and get very personal.

Speaker 2 You've never been attacked like this to this level.

Speaker 17 No, Nicholas Rossi, I'll give him that. He took it to a new level.

Speaker 2 The feud would take us to this Scottish castle

Speaker 2 and we'd end up in this Scottish courthouse

Speaker 2 where a judge would finally make a ruling and determine who this man really is.

Speaker 2 Prosecutor David Levitt had a full plate in June of 2022. Not only was he working to extradite an American fugitive, he was also running for re-election.

Speaker 2 And just days before the polls opened, he says his campaign was sabotaged by the man calling himself Arthur Knight.

Speaker 17 He accused my wife and I of being human traffickers, of being cannibals, of being murderers.

Speaker 2 Arthur posted this on his website. Breaking news, David Levitt is confirmed to be head of a criminal Utah cult.
This goes deep. This is like a thriller.

Speaker 17 We didn't think it was too thrilling for us.

Speaker 2 Levitt had had enough and called his own press conference.

Speaker 14 That this all occurs less than one week

Speaker 14 before ballots drop

Speaker 32 in an election in which I am participating

Speaker 32 causes me tremendous tremendous concern.

Speaker 2 Arthur cited the Utah County Sheriff's Office as the source of his allegations. The sheriff was a vocal critic of Levitt's and backed his opponent in the prosecutor's race.

Speaker 2 The sheriff denied that he had been Arthur's source. Regardless, the story was out there.

Speaker 2 How do you defend yourself against allegations like that when someone is

Speaker 2 putting them out there like they're fact?

Speaker 17 Well, there's no way to defend yourself in this culture.

Speaker 2 Levitt lost his election and believes Nicholas Rossi was partly to blame.

Speaker 17 He did cost me my job.

Speaker 2 Although Levitt was out of office, the case against Arthur Knight/slash Nicholas Rossi kept going and continued to grab headlines.

Speaker 2 The next big story happened when Arthur was back in the hospital, allegedly dodging a court appearance. He assaulted a doctor and a nurse.

Speaker 29 Yeah, and they said at that point he actually got up off the gurney that he was on and came at them, which raised some questions about his physical capacity.

Speaker 2 Several articles quoted the female doctor who said, he was inches from our faces. We were utterly terrified.
We thought he was coming to harm us.

Speaker 2 Arthur had flown into a rage when he was told he would be discharged.

Speaker 29 And that was a good reason at that point to

Speaker 29 restrict his bail.

Speaker 2 Arthur Knight was sent to jail and after a quick trial he was convicted of assault. But his biggest day in court yet was right around the corner.

Speaker 2 Almost a year after he was first arrested, a judge was about to rule on Arthur's identity. Was he Arthur Knight, British businessman? Or Nicholas Rossi, American fugitive?

Speaker 2 Reporter Jane Meck Sorley was in the courtroom.

Speaker 2 The advocate deputy was asking him the questions, and then he asked him about the tattoos.

Speaker 2 The Scottish prosecutor presented evidence that the tattoos on Arthur's upper arms were identical to Nicholas Rossi's. How did Arthur Knight explain the tattoos? Well, he said in court that

Speaker 2 the tattoos were put on him when he was in a coma in the hospital in Glasgow.

Speaker 2 That's right. He told the judge they were inked on his arms while he was unconscious.

Speaker 2 The advocate deputy was just like about three meters away and he turned round and his face was like it was like an emoji with a big open mouth. It was like,

Speaker 2 he couldn't believe what he'd heard, and neither could all of us. This was a jawdropper.
Totally. Of all the craziness of the story.

Speaker 47 Absolutely.

Speaker 2 This was the strangest thing that had happened. Yeah.

Speaker 2 In the old police photos, Nicholas Rossi had tattoos on his entire left arm. Remember, Jane didn't see the upper part of his arm when she interviewed him, only his forearm, and it was free of tattoos.

Speaker 2 Shortly after that visit, she learned why. One of his ex-wives had said that when they were together in 2015, that he was going through the process of getting his tattoos removed.

Speaker 2 And what about a much more traditional way of making an ID? Fingerprints. Those were a match, too.
But Arthur had an explanation.

Speaker 2 He said they were taken by a hospital worker without his knowledge and sent to Utah to David Levitt, so Levitt could claim they were Rossi's. I mean, it was just, it was just some moment, you know.

Speaker 2 The judge wasn't buying any of it and announced his decision.

Speaker 53 I am ultimately satisfied on the balance of probabilities by the evidence of fingerprint, photographic and tattoo evidence that Mr. Knight is indeed Nicholas Rossi.

Speaker 2 Finally, Nafsika, Catherine,

Speaker 2 Mary heard the words they'd been waiting for. But they, of course, never had any doubt he was the man who they say had victimized them.
Catherine says they formed an unofficial support group.

Speaker 2 Do you think that you will all eventually come together to bring him down?

Speaker 6 I feel like we already have.

Speaker 2 Now the court can move on to an extradition hearing.

Speaker 2 As for David Levitt, even though his life was turned upside down by the con man, the former prosecutor has no regrets about going after him. And now he has something else to occupy his time.

Speaker 2 What did David Levitt do after leaving office? He bought this fixer-upper Scottish castle called Noctery. And it just happens to be 50 miles from where Nicholas Rossi was caught.

Speaker 2 Some people here in Scotland are calling this

Speaker 2 castle your FU castle. Did you know that?

Speaker 24 I didn't know that.

Speaker 17 I had a choice to make. The choice was simple.
Do I save my political career or do I do my job? and take the man down.

Speaker 2 And what about Nicholas's current wife, Miranda? How does she she fit into all of this? Jane thinks she knows.

Speaker 2 While reporting for her podcast, she uncovered a recording of Louise, the woman who claimed to be Nicholas's widow, as soon as she hit play.

Speaker 33 Basically, the priest was explaining that he had done his first funeral on Monday.

Speaker 2 It was just an automatic, oh my god, that's Miranda. I mean, you know, I know my British accents.
No doubt in your mind. No doubt whatsoever.
So you think Miranda's in on this?

Speaker 19 Oh, yeah

Speaker 2 she's in on it up to her neck

Speaker 2 miranda hasn't been charged with anything and she continues to stand by her man she was a lot less chatty than during our interview when we caught up with her at one of nicholas's extradition hearings in edinburgh do you have anything to say today about the hearing

Speaker 2 nicholas's next hearing is scheduled for june a year and a half after his first arrest Defense attorney Paul Dunn says the drawn-out process is not unusual in Scotland, and he should know.

Speaker 36 There aren't a lot of extradition lawyers in Scotland.

Speaker 2 Arthur even tried to hire him, but he passed.

Speaker 36 He's going to be an exacting and demanding client. He was going to take more time than I had.

Speaker 2 And Dunn says the process is going to take a lot more time, possibly even years, because Scotland has a strict human rights checklist for prisons and the US doesn't always cooperate.

Speaker 36 We don't know whether their prisons conform with the European Convention on Human Rights, on size, on ventilation, on just general welfare.

Speaker 2 Utah will have to satisfy Scotland's conditions before the judge will extradite Nicholas.

Speaker 2 For now, the former prosecutor and Nicholas's victims are relieved he's behind bars. They don't care where.
They just hope he will stay locked up for a very long time.

Speaker 2 What do you want to get across? What's the most important

Speaker 2 part of all of this?

Speaker 43 I I want

Speaker 45 the courts to know that if he ever gets out,

Speaker 46 he will do it again.

Speaker 43 He will find more victims.

Speaker 46 That is his way of life, and that's all he knows.

Speaker 44 And it's not okay for a person like that to be free.

Speaker 4 That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again Sunday at 7, 6th Central.
And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News.

Speaker 14 I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 3 For all of us at NBC News, good night.

Speaker 22 Hi, everybody. It's Josh Mankiewicz, and I'm talking dateline with Andrea Canning.
Specifically, we're talking about the episode you've just listened to.

Speaker 22 So go to the episode above this one and get the inside story. We're going behind the scenes of Andrea's interview with Arthur Knight, the man who claims he's not Nicholas Aliverdian.

Speaker 22 And we'll talk about the incredible strength of the women we interviewed in this episode. And Andrea will tell you about the nightmares it gave her.

Speaker 22 If you're listening to Dateline, we're talking Dateline. And I hope you join us wherever you're listening.

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