Man who faked his death to escape prosecution is found alive and suffering from Covid in Scotland

The man had used at least three fake names and was facing fraud and sex assault charges

Nicholas Alahverdian, a Rhode Island man who faked his own death to avoid fraud and sexual assault charges. He was found on a ventilator fighting Covid-19 in Glasgow, Scotland. (screengrab)

A Rhode Island man who faked his own death in order to dodge fraud and sexual assault charges has reportedly been found alive in Scotland.

Nicholas Alahverdian supposedly died at age 32 from complications associated with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. However, he was discovered – now using the name Arthur Knight – on a ventilator fighting Covid-19 in a hospital in Glasgow, Scotland.

The Providence Journal reported that Mr Alahverdian was arrested by Interpol at the hospital last month, shocking the staff, who had no idea they had been caring for a fugitive.

The Utah County Attorney's Office told the publication that Mr Alahverdian faked his death to escape charges in Utah and Ohio.

Mr Alahverdian was facing sexual assault charges originating in Utah, where he was operating under the name Nicholas Rossi. According to state agents, they "discovered that Nicholas Rossi was a suspect in a number of similar offenses in Utah and throughout the United States after [an initial] 2008 incident."

In 2008, he was convicted on two sex-related charges tied to an incident that occurred in a stairwell with a student at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio.

He also faced fraud charges in Ohio, where he is accused of scamming his foster mother out of $200,000, and his ex-wife out of $60,000.

Mr Alahverdian reached out to local media outlets in the weeks leading up to his "death" in order to drum up his impending demise and celebrate his work fighting against the state's child welfare system. He then reportedly became infuriated after journalists refuse to write about him.

The man was living in Scotland at the time of his supposed death. He claimed that his work as a child care advocate resulted in threats that drove him out of the US.

The claims surrounding Mr Alahverdian – both those made by him and about him – are bizarre.

The man's wife, who was not named in a Providence Journal piece because she feared the same shadowy assailants that reportedly drove her husband to Scotland, claimed in 2021 that "unless my husband was cloned and died in my arms and faked cancer diagnosis, treatment and heart disease/heart attacks for months before that, he passed away. In my arms." She claimed he was cremated and that his ashes were scattered at sea.

Apparently not.

She also claimed that he was "beaten and forced to work without pay at gunpoint as a campaign manager in 2016" and that he was raped by a politician in 2002 and 2003.

An obituary written after his faked death called Mr Alahverdian a “warrior” for children and quoted his final words as: “Fear not and run toward the bliss of the sun.”

He will now face extradition hearings from the UK, though it is unclear when he will be returned to the US.