Fugitive rape suspect Nicholas Rossi ‘started abusing ex-wife day after wedding’
FUGITIVE rape suspect Nicholas Rossi’s ex-wife has told of her terrifying seven-month marriage to the convicted fiend.
The 32-year-old claimed he began abusing her the day after they wed in 2015.
She said Rossi, 34 — at the time using the surname Alahverdian — tried to control her life following their nuptials at a Mormon church in Dayton, Ohio.
And the woman, who declined to be identified, said she had no idea he had been convicted of a sex attack on a student in Utah in 2008 when they got hitched.
She said: “I was very vulnerable at the time.
“The day after we married he started getting violent. He tried to hurt me with a knife.
“Then he said he was going to kill himself, and he put the knife to his neck.”
The woman said Rossi — who uses 16 aliases including ‘Arthur Knight’ — wanted absolute control over her life and stopped her seeing family and friends.
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She told the Providence Journal in Rhode Island: “He literally wanted me to stay confined to the house.
“There was this image he was going for — the strong husband that provided for the family — and I had to dress a certain way, have my hair a certain way.”
In May 2016, seven months after their wedding, she filed for divorce.
A judge later ruled Rossi was “guilty of gross neglect of duty and extreme cruelty towards the plaintiff”.
Rossi also swindled $52,000 (£38,257) from the woman and owes her spousal support and legal fees.
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She added: “He still haunts me — to this day there are certain things that can trigger me and make me feel unsafe.”
Rossi is wanted for rape in Utah.
We told how he was traced to Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in December after a near-fatal battle with Covid.
He was remanded at Saughton nick in Edinburgh and is expected at the capital’s Sheriff Court later this month.
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