SALT LAKE CITY — A jury trial has begun in Salt Lake County for a man accused of faking his own death, changing his name, and moving to Europe to avoid rape charges in Utah.

Nicholas Rossi is accused of sexually assaulting a woman he briefly dated in 2008. Court documents say the woman reported it to police in 2022 after seeing Rossi on the news when he was fighting extradition from Scotland, where he moved and was going by the name Arthur Knight after he allegedly faked his own death.

He was identified through a DNA rape kit in that case several years later.

After years of investigation and a legal battle to bring him to Utah, Nicholas Rossi was wheeled into court on Monday to stand trial for the alleged rape of his ex-fiancée in 2008.

Rossi arrived in court in a wheelchair, connected

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