Fox 13 News Utah/YouTube
After being extradited to the U.S. from Scotland earlier this month, Nicholas Rossi used a court appearance in Utah on Tuesday to insist again that he isn’t Rossi at all, putting on a British accent to deny allegations that he was pretending to be someone else as “complete hearsay.”
The 36-year-old instead gave his name as Arthur Knight Brown at the hearing for a charge of rape in connection with an assault against a 21-year-old woman in Orem, Utah, in 2008. Rossi, who has previously been convicted of sexual assault and faked his own death, had previously insisted that he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Brown as he fought a lengthy legal battle against his extradition from the U.K.
Speaking from jail via a video link Tuesday, Rossi was asked to confirm his name and birthdate. He repeatedly had to lift up an oxygen mask to be heard clearly in the courtroom, telling the judge that he was Arthur Knight Brown and giving a date of birth that differed from Rossi’s, KSTU reports. He also gave the birthdate in the British format of day-month-year.