Nicholas Alahverdian
Nicholas Alahverdian, also known as Nicholas Rossi and Arthur Knight, among other aliases, is an American sex offender and child welfare activist who faked his own death in 2020.
Alahverdian alleged that he suffered abuse and negligence from the Department of Children, Youth and Families, Rhode Island's social service system. In support of this allegation, he sued the DCYF in federal court in 2011, then voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit when Rhode Island waived his medical expenses debt of around $200,000.
In January 2020, Alahverdian said that he had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In February 2020, news outlets reported Alahverdian's death, citing his family's anonymous testimony and his obituary. The reports of his death were disputed, as they occurred after the FBI initiated a fraud investigation against him, while Rhode Island police had issued a warrant for him for failure to register as a sex offender.
In October 2021, he was identified in a hospital in Scotland while undergoing treatment for COVID-19. He was arrested that December on charges of an alleged rape in Utah in 2008, for which a sealed arrest warrant had been issued in September 2020, and other alleged crimes. In November 2022, Edinburgh Sheriff Court confirmed that the arrested man was Nicholas Rossi, despite his claims of mistaken identity. In August 2023, a sheriff ruled that he could be extradited to the United States; this was confirmed by Justice Secretary Angela Constance in October 2023, and he was extradited on January 5, 2024.
He gave up his claim of mistaken identity in a Utah court on August 23, 2024, and formally admitted to faking his death during a bail hearing on October 16 of that year. Alahverdian was subsequently convicted in two separate rape cases in August and September 2025 by courts in Salt Lake County, Utah and Provo, Utah respectively.
Biography
Early life
Alahverdian has alleged that his parents were "abusive and alcoholic" and "couldn't take care of him", leading to his placement in the care of the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth & Families. Alahverdian's birth father had convictions for domestic assault and drug dealing. He left the family when Alahverdian was three. His mother remarried in 1994, to David Rossi. Early in his life, Alahverdian was diagnosed with behavioral and mental health issues. Rossi stated: "He just wouldn't listen in school, he hit the mother, hit the grandmother all the time, hit his siblings. I used to have to hold him down, and he'd be spitting at me". When Alahverdian was 10 years old, Rossi said he lost his patience during a family trip when Alahverdian would not stop hitting his mother. Rossi beat him badly enough to put him in the hospital. Rossi was arrested for assault, but the police eventually dropped the charges. Exactly what happened next is disputed by various family members, but Alahverdian became a ward of the state. He was placed in psychiatric care at Butler Hospital and later, Bradley Hospital. At Butler, doctors diagnosed him with narcissistic personality disorder and attention deficit disorder. After being discharged from a treatment program, he briefly went back to his family home but was removed and placed into the care of DCYF as a result of creating conflict within his family home.Alahverdian alleged that, for a period of 15 months beginning in March 2002, the DCYF placed him in their "night-to-night" program, in which a youth would spend days at a DCYF building in Pawtucket and nights at one of several shelters around Rhode Island, including locations in Central Falls, Providence, Narragansett, or Woonsocket. He said he did not attend school during this period. According to Alahverdian, the other youths stole his belongings and threatened and assaulted him during his time there. The Providence Journal, in April 2012, described the night-to-night program as a "stifling" experience and said Alahverdian was "denied a substantial chunk of his childhood".
Alahverdian was hired as a legislative page in the Rhode Island House of Representatives at age 14. Alahverdian said that he informed lawmakers about his negative experience in DCYF care, but received no assistance. Brian G. Coogan, a Rhode Island Representative at the time, stated that he felt sorry for the teenage Alahverdian and took action to formally adopt him, but was warned off from doing so by Family Court Chief Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah. Coogan said that Jeremiah predicted that Alahverdian "will try to undermine you and turn your family upside-down".
Local media reported that Alahverdian was sent by DCYF to Boys Town in Nebraska and Manatee Palms Youth Services in Florida in 2003. In a 2011 lawsuit filed against the Rhode Island DCYF, he testified that he was prohibited from contacting others, such as the media, attorneys, the state child advocate, and his caseworker during this period. Alahverdian alleged that he was sent out of state because, in Rhode Island, he was "a source of information on DCYF". Rhode Island authorities stated that there were no records of Alahverdian being abused.
According to a DCYF spokesperson, they stopped using Manatee Palms Youth Services in 2005 due to "concerns we had with the way they were treating our kids". In 2005, Alahverdian was returned to Rhode Island, where he received treatment at Bradley Hospital for two weeks. Afterwards, he was placed in an independent living program.
Alahverdian told WPRI that he was beaten daily in Florida, Nebraska, and Rhode Island by other youths in DCYF programs. Alahverdian told WJAR that he suffered "torture, beatings, assault", and neglect under DCYF care until 2005. Coogan said that Jeremiah told him that Alahverdian was the one who was abusive to others.
Education and sexual imposition conviction
After Alahverdian left the DCYF system, a couple in Ohio, Sharon and Charles Lane, became what The Daily Beast called "de facto foster parents" to him.Acquaintances said that Alahverdian preyed upon women who had recently been dumped or were otherwise emotionally fragile. The earliest accusation of rape against Alahverdian that The Daily Beast could find was in 2006, when he and his alleged victim were 18 years old. She said they met online and initially got on well, though she later came to believe that his pleasant personality was a rehearsed act. When they met in person, she said that he constantly pressured her for sex. When she refused, she alleged that he threatened her and then raped her. Thinking that nobody would believe her, she did not report it to the police. In late 2007, Alahverdian was questioned by Utah police after an 18 year old woman accused him of rape, though he was apparently not arrested or charged.
Two Sinclair Community College students in Ohio accused Alahverdian of sexual assault. The first one, who accused him of groping her while masturbating in his apartment, decided not to press charges when police suggested that it would be difficult to prove anything in court. Another student said she met Alahverdian on campus and had lunch with him, after which he offered to walk with her to her next class. Then in a basement stairwell, he pinned her against a wall, groped her and masturbated. When she protested, he said: "I'm almost done. Don't be a bitch." She said that Alahverdian later apologized and told her "he couldn't help it" because she was "so beautiful—and not to tell anybody". She made a police report. Prosecutors told her that she also lacked enough evidence for a case, but when Alahverdian filed a police report accusing her of being the aggressor, they moved forward. Around the same time, another ex-girlfriend alleged to police that he had bruised her, bitten her, and told her that he found it sexually arousing when she declined to have sex. When questioned, Alahverdian told police the sex was consensual.
Later in 2008, Alahverdian, under the name Nicholas Rossi, was convicted of public indecency and sexual imposition for the incident at Sinclair Community College, and was required to register as a sex offender. He filed a motion for a retrial based on a newly surfaced Myspace post allegedly written by the victim, which claimed that she had lied about the incident. At an evidentiary hearing in 2011, a computer forensics expert testified "with 90% certainty" that the post had been altered or fabricated entirely. The motion for retrial was dismissed by the reviewing judge.
For a short period of time, Alahverdian studied comparative literature in extension program classes offered by Harvard University. He did not graduate: in 2012, he was "administratively withdrawn" from the course when the university learned of his sex offender status. Despite this, Alahverdian claimed to be a "Harvard scholar, political scientist and sociologist".
After Alahverdian failed to overturn his sex offender conviction, "he became a men's rights figurehead for radicalized people" who claim they are unable to get romantic or sexual partners despite desiring them—often referred to as incels. Despite having no legal qualifications, Alahverdian provided legal advice to A Voice for Men, an extremist website that the SPLC labeled as a hate group. Alahverdian ignored the requirement to register as a sex offender in multiple states.
In April 2013, he sued Sinclair Community College, Dayton Municipal Court, and multiple others in the Southern Ohio United States District Court for making "serious, life-altering false allegations" and claimed he was deprived of a jury trial. This suit was dismissed by judge Thomas M. Rose on August 12, 2013. Alahverdian also sued his victim, accusing her of libel as she had described him as "crazy". Alahverdian's claim was found to be without merit in 2014. Alahverdian wrote an essay in which he named and blamed his victim for ruining his "goals and aspirations", comparing the victim's actions to the September 11 attacks.