Fugitive sex offender Nicholas Rossi claims he has been “bullied” by prisoners who sing the John Denver classic Leaving on a Jet Plane to him.
In a courtroom rant lasting nearly three hours, the 35-year-old asked Sheriff Norman McFadyen to release him on bail because he is being intimidated by fellow lags. Rossi is currently on remand as US authorities are trying him to extradite him over sexual assault allegations. He denies the claims and says he’s a man called Arthur Knight.
But yesterday, he alleged he’s become a bullying victim. He claimed inmates at Edinburgh’s Saughton prison insist on singing Denver’s 1969 hit at every opportunity. Begging Sheriff McFadyen for bail, Rossi said: “I’ve been treated incredibly terribly. My wife is afraid to enter the prison. I’ve been bullied on a daily basis. I’ve kept in my cell 24 hours a day.
"This includes singing of the song Leaving on a Jet Plane.” Rossi accused prison chiefs of the “masterful sabotage” of his relationship with his eighth set of lawyers. Edinburgh Sheriff Court heard how his lawyers withdrew after staff at the jail allegedly told them he we wouldn’t attend meetings to discuss his defence.
Rossi claimed this was a “lie” and that he was able to meet his solicitor Andrew Docherty and advocate Mungo Bovey KC. He said he would now represent himself in the extradition case and that he was “saddened” by the lawyers’ decision to stop acting for him.
Rossi was first arrested in December 2021 after being admitted to Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital for urgent treatment for Covid-19. He is said to have checked in to the medical facility using the Knight alias. He was traced after a tip-off from Interpol while he was on a ventilator.
Authorities in the States claim he faked his own death to flee charges there and that he came to live in Scotland under an assumed identity. He is wanted in Utah over an allegation of sexual assault. But he says it’s a massive mistake – insisting he’s called Arthur Knight and claiming never to have been in the US.
The fugitive was identified using fingerprints, tattoos and mugshots but Rossi claimed he’d been tattooed while in a coma and his prints had been taken while he was receiving Covid treatment. The latest extradition request relates to an allegation the convicted sex offender was responsible for raping another woman in the US.
Rossi appeared in court in a wheelchair wearing a suit. He wasn’t connected to an oxygen tank and was breathing
independently but spoke quietly for most of the session. During a lengthy hearing, Rossi asked for bail to be granted to him. He also paid tribute to his “darling wife” Miranda who “has suffered so much”.
Sheriff McFadyen adjourned the hearing, which will deal with the issue of identity with regards to the second extradition warrant, until February 15. A full hearing in the case is expected to take place on March 6. The sheriff refused Rossi’s request for bail.
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