Nicholas Rossi, 38, Dies in Utah Hospital After Being Moved from Prison

Nicholas Rossi died Thursday night after being taken from a Utah prison to a hospital, the Utah Department of Corrections said Friday. He was 38. Richard Piatt, a department spokesperson, said Rossi died from complications of an existing medical condition after choosing to discontinue medical treatment.

His victims and family were notified. Rossi was serving at least 10 years in prison for two sexual assault cases that went to trial in Utah in 2025. He had been extradited from Scotland in 2024. Authorities identified Rossi in 2018 through a decade-old DNA rape kit.

An online obituary later claimed he died on Feb. 29, 2020, of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, but police and others questioned the report. He was arrested in Scotland in 2021 while receiving treatment for COVID-19.

Hospital staff recognized him by distinctive tattoos, including the crest of Brown University on his shoulder. Rossi used at least a dozen aliases to evade capture, investigators said. Two women in Utah accused him of sexual assault.

One said he raped her in his Orem apartment after she went there to collect money he had stolen from her. The other said she met him through a Craigslist personal ad, began dating him and became engaged within weeks. “I am not guilty of this.

These women are lying,” Rossi said at a sentencing hearing last October. Rossi appeared at a jury trial in Salt Lake City on Aug. 11, 2025, and spoke during a hearing livestreamed on Jan. 16, 2024.