A US man who faked his death and fled to Scotland in the UK after being accused of rape has now been jailed for at least five years in the US.

Nicholas Rossi, 38, of Rhodes Island, was convicted in separate trials in August and September of raping two women in Utah in 2008.

Appearing in court in Salt Lake City, Rossi was sentenced by a judge for the first conviction to a term ranging from five years to life in prison. He is due to be sentenced for the second conviction next month.

Before sentencing, Judge Barry G Lawrence described Rossi as a “serial abuser of women” and said he was the “very definition of a flight risk”.

“He fled the country to avoid investigation. He took on an alias and, even in response to this case, refused to admit who he was,” the judge said.

An online obituary posted in February 2020 said Rossi, who was born Nicholas Alahverdian, had died from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He then came to wider attention in December 2021 when he was arrested on the Covid ward of a Glasgow hospital. Staff recognised his mugshot and distinctive tattoos from an Interpol wanted notice.

Rossi claimed that his name was Arthur Knight – an Irish-born orphan who had never been to the US.

He made a series of bizarre court appearances in Scotland – in a wheelchair, wearing a three-piece suit and an oxygen mask, maintaining his claim of mistaken identity.

He was extradited to the US in January 2024 and put on trial in Utah for two separate charges of rape.