RI con artist disputes charges against him in Scottish court: Lies, lies, lies
ENDINBURGH, Scotland – Reality seemed to flicker for a moment Tuesday in a courtroom here when Nick Alahverdian, Nicholas Rossi, Arthur Knight (pick a favorite alias) took the stand in his own defense to counter damning evidence that he’s a wanted fugitive and imposter.
If his extradition proceeding was a Broadway show, the marquee might read: “Alahverdian says identifying tattoos inked onto his body while he was in a coma.... Says matching fingerprints the work of Utah county attorney framing him for exposing the prosecutor as alleged member of child sex ring.”
For about 50 minutes in Edinburgh Extradition Court, prosecutor Paul Harvey cross examined an argumentative Alahverdian as the former Rhode Islander who faked his death in 2020 sat 20 feet away in his wheelchair, spoke easily without his usual oxygen supply and stuck to his masquerade in the face of powerful evidence.
Inside the case:A Scottish court is trying to prove Nick Alahverdian's identity. Here's how it went.
Alahverdian’s response to that evidence presented a day earlier confirming he’s the suspect wanted back in America on rape and fraud charges seemed to grow more bizarre by the minute.
What evidence was presented against Alahverdian?
On Monday, the prosecution introduced mug shots of Alahverdian taken a decade ago and photographs of his elaborate arm tattoos that were part of his police booking in Pawtucket in 2010 for an outstanding warrant.
A nurse and doctor from Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow testified the patient they knew as Arthur Knight had the same tattoos in October 2021 as he lay seriously ill with COVID.
Two police officers who arrested him at the hospital testified they did so after matching the older pictures of Alahverdian and his tattoos with the patient Arthur Knight.
And a fingerprint expert said “Arthur Knight’s” prints matched those of Alahverdian.
Earlier this year:Nick Alahverdian charged with third sexual assault. What we know as he fights extradition
How did Alahverdian explain the evidence?
Confronted by some of those facts Tuesday during cross-examination, Alahverdian said, “I did not have free will of my body” while he was in several comas. Only after he awoke from one, he said, had he “found what had been done to my body.”
Asked Harvey: “These tattoos appeared on your body when you were in a coma?”
“Yes,” said Alahverdian. But even then, Alahverdian fought Harvey's attack, saying his tattoos were somehow different from the police photographs Harvey was pointing out on a large screen.
"The staff, doctors, nurses in the INC...did nothing to prevent someone from putting these tattoos on your body while you were in a coma?" asked an incredulous Harvey. “Nothing happened to you in a coma; you’ve always had those tattoos, haven’t you?” asked Harvey.
“No,” said Alahverdian.
“You got them in the United States of America.”
“I’ve never been to the United States of America,” Alahverdian said.
Alahverdian argued, too, about the various mug shots. The person in those pictures had different facial features than he does, he said; the eyes too far apart, the nose fatter; "clearly that is a different beard of the one you see today," he said.
Abuse, disguises, denial:Nick Alahverdian's act is all too familiar to his Ohio ex-wife
Alahverdian had a similarly outlandish explanation for why his fingerprints – the fingerprints of “Arthur Knight” – would match this fugitive Nick Alahverdian.
He charged that a Glasgow police officer by the name of Patrick had taken his fingerprints while in the hospital and sent them to Utah where his nemesis, Utah County Attorney David Leavitt, tucked them into an international arrest packet to implicate Arthur Knight in Alahverdian’s 2008 rape charge.
A baffled Harvey asked: "Your testimony is this Patrick took your fingerprints and put them in a United States extradition request? And they are lying to the American government? Is that your testimony?”
“Are you aware of the Leavitt family?” Alahverdian replied. “He will do or say anything to hide the fact that he is being investigated – in which I alleged he had been accused of pedophilia.”
(Alahverdian had raised the wild allegation publicly as Leavitt, an elected official, was in a primary battle months ago. Leavitt strenuously denied the claim.)
Previously in court:Fugitive Nick Alahverdian tells Scottish court, "my mental health is deteriorating."
Those are your fingerprints, declared Harvey, because “you are Nicholas Rossi, aren’t you?’
“I will treat that question with the contempt it richly deserves,” replied Alahverdian, who used the surname Rossi for several years.
Court Sheriff Norman McFadyen interjected with, "That is a question."
“No,” answered Alahverdian.
The hearing ended with Alahverdian's only defense witness, his wife, Miranda Knight, swearing to tell the truth and proceeding to tell the story of how she and her husband met in 2012 and how incarceration has hurt her husband mentally and physically.
Harvey objected several times to her testimony, saying it had no relevance to the issue at hand: determining Alahverdian’s true identity.
The hearing is to continue Wednesday.
Contact Tom Mooney at email: tmooney@providencejournal.com