A man suspected of faking his own death to escape US rape charges has hired a lawyer who faced being struck off over a bizarre entrapment plot.
Prosecutors contend the man is Nicholas Rossi, 34, who fled America to escape an array of alleged offences.
He was arrested at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital last December while receiving treatment for Covid-19 after medical staff were shown pictures of him.
During an extradition hearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Thursday, he again claimed his name was actually Arthur Knight.
At a previous hearing, he was told by a sheriff to instruct lawyers to represent him in the case.
It emerged he has hired Matthew Berlow, who was previously slammed by legal watchdogs for playing a key part in faking a graffiti attack at his own home.
The bogus incident was then used to smear the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Mr Berlow said he was acting as a “consultant solicitor for Mr Knight” and was by his side as his client addressed the media outside court.
The suspect was in a wheelchair and wearing a breathing mask connected to an oxygen tank.
In strange scenes outside the court building when he arrived, the tank became disconnected from his mask and rolled across the street.
Police officers had to assist his wife Miranda Knight, 41, in re-connecting the device.
During the hearing, he was represented by solicitor Becky Houston. Ms Houston said her client continued to deny he is Nicholas Rossi.
Ms Houston said “Mr Knight is in poor health” and she’d been unable to have a “lengthy consultation” with him since being instructed to act on his behalf.
Sheriff Norman McFadyen said “Mr Knight, as he is calling himself, does not accept his is the requested person” and the matter of identification would have to be considered by the court.
Fiscal depute Clare Kennedy said she understood that “identification would be dealt with as part of a full hearing”.
Ms Kennedy said prosecutors would “lead evidence” on that issue.
Sheriff McFadyen said he was content to hear the evidence at the full extradition hearing and set a date of June 9.
Dismissing the case, the clerk referred to the accused as “Nicholas Rossi”.
The suspect replied: “Arthur Knight”.
He addressed reporters outside court for around 15 minutes after the hearing, making comments that were largely unintelligible due to his mask.
At one point he produced a printed sheet of paper which he claimed showed DNA results would help prove he wasn’t Nicholas Rossi.
US prosecutors claim he is the Nicholas Rossi who raped a 21-year-old in Utah, in 2008. He is also said to have attacked women in Rhode Island, Ohio and Massachusetts.
They say he has previously used the names Nick Alan, Nicholas Brown, Arthur Brown and Arthur Knight.
Rossi reportedly told US media in December 2019 that he had late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma and had weeks to live. Several outlets reported that he had died in February 2020.
In 2020 the Record told how Mr Berlow devised a conspiracy with an accomplice to catch out another lawyer he believed was subjecting him to anti-Semitic abuse.
The Glasgow-based solicitor helped fake a graffiti attack at his home and dragged political opponents into the firing line by making false claims against the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign on social media.
An initial probe by the reporter for the Law Society of Scotland recommended Pro-Israel Mr Berlow be fined £500 for unsatisfactory conduct.
The society’s professional conduct sub-committee later decided his behaviour potentially amounted to professional misconduct.
Berlow, who had been found guilty of four previous offences, faced being struck off or restricted in what legal duties he can perform.
