The brother-in-law of a US fugitive who was arrested in Scotland has described the conman as a "master manipulator".
Kevin Knight, who lives in South Bristol with his family, said that he doesn't think his sister Miranda was aware her new husband Nicholas Rossi was on the run from the FBI because of rape and fraud charges.
The 45-year-old Bristol builder, who was Rossi's best man at their wedding last year after the couple met online, told the DailyRecord that his sister is distraught but in denial, believing police have the wrong man.
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Rossi’s past caught up with him in Scotland last month when police arrested him at the flat he was renting in Glasgow’s West End after he and Miranda moved from Bristol.
It appears the couple moved last year from South Bristol where Miranda, 41, is still the owner of a house.
A Sunday Mail investigation uncovered Rossi had been living at the large house owned by his wife, but when a reporter visited the former house it looked empty and abandoned. The man, who police say has 16 different identities, is now in custody facing extradition to the US.
Kevin said: “Nicholas is a master manipulator. He’s told her it’s a case of mistaken identity. He kept my sister under this spell. He’s pulled every manipulation trick in the book to try and keep her under that spell.”
Kevin, who lives in Bristol with his family, only found out about Rossi’s past when his arrest broke in a news report. He has spoken with Miranda, who is still in Glasgow, but said he is very worried about her state of mind.
He said: “I’m wondering if the net was closing in on him in Bristol, if it’s why he talked my sister into moving to Glasgow.”
Kevin said in the three years he’d known Rossi, he spoke with a thick Irish accent and called himself Nicholas Brown.
He added: “He was very polite, a caring person, a church person, the whole charade was perfect.
“He never really talked about his family, we just assumed he’d came through the care system, so respectfully we didn’t ask.
“I was the best man because there was no one in the family. There was always a question on where did he come from, there were never any friends or family and looking back now … you realise some things start to make sense.”
Those things included never wanting his picture taken and missing some family events because of “illness”.
Rossi told Miranda’s family he was from Dublin but had moved to London to work in marketing and PR and lived in Essex.
He got close to Miranda’s parents and visited her mum Iris regularly at her care home before she died.
The couple moved to Glasgow last year after Rossi claimed he had got a job at Glasgow University.
Kevin said his dad Mike, 82, is devastated by the revelations and wants Miranda to come home to Bristol.
Kevin is now considering going to the police after the Daily Record told him he was named as a director of one of Rossi’s companies – called Veritascube Ltd – which was set up without his knowledge.
Police in the US want Rossi for the alleged rape of a 21-year-old ex-girlfriend in Orem, Utah, in 2008.
He is also said to have attacked women in Ohio, Rhode Island and Massachusetts and is facing further charges of identity theft and fraud.
He was previously convicted of a sex assault in Dayton, Ohio, in 2008.
Tributes to him under the alias Nicholas Alahverdian were posted after he said he died of cancer in February 2020.
Throughout a hearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court his lawyer referred to him as Arthur Knight while prosecutors called him Rossi.
The court was told police and hospital staff identified the man as Rossi from his tattoos.
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