I’m fugitive Nicholas Rossi’s stepdad, I’m glad he’s being sent back to US – he’s the devil’s spawn
CONVICTED predator Nicholas Rossi’s stepdad has hailed a sheriff’s decision to send him back to America to face more serious sex charges — branding him the “devil’s spawn”.
Dave Rossi, 64, last night praised law chief Norman McFadyen for bringing the 20-month legal circus to an end as he called for his estranged relative to rot in jail.
Rossi, 35 — who has more than a dozen aliases and pretends to be Irishman Arthur Knight — yesterday lost his battle to avoid extradition to Utah, where he’s accused of raping a woman in 2008 as well as fraud and domestic abuse.
He insists he’s the victim of mistaken identify and has dragged out proceedings with lurid claims, including that tattoos matching National Crime Agency records were etched on him while he lay unconscious with Covid in a Glasgow hospital.
But yesterday Sheriff McFadyen ruled there is nothing in law to prevent the fugitive being sent across the Atlantic.
Rossi’s stepfather Dave told The Scottish Sun from his home in Rhode Island: “Finally.
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"He needs to come back here and face what he did to these poor girls.
"I haven’t seen him in years and I don’t want to.
“He ruined lives.
"When he was a kid he was terrible.
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“Nicholas is the devil’s spawn.
"He should spend the rest of his life in jail for what he did.”
In a damning ruling in Edinburgh, Sheriff McFadyen ripped apart Rossi’s “unreliable” claims.
On the fantasist’s use of a wheelchair and insistence he struggles to move, the sheriff said: “He contradicted himself as regards the length of time he had been in a wheelchair.
“His claim that he could not lift his arms above his head and keep them there because of atrophy was contradicted by his behaviour during the proceedings, when he regularly raised and kept his hand raised.
“I recall that [Rossi’s GP] Dr Mundweil doubted whether she could rely on what he told her about his medical condition.
“He continues to maintain that he is an Irishman, adopted at birth, long resident in the United Kingdom and who has never set foot in the United States.
“I conclude that he is as dishonest and deceitful as he is evasive and manipulative.
"These unfortunate facets of his character have undoubtedly complicated and extended what is a straightforward case.”
Rossi, who is supported by wife Miranda Knight, appeared at the city’s sheriff court by videolink after claiming to be ill.
He raged that he’d been brought before the camera by “force” and called the sheriff “a disgrace to justice”.
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MSPs are expected to formalise his extradition within 28 days.
Tory MSP Russell Findlay said: “It will be a huge relief to this attention-seeking sex offender’s victims that this ludicrous circus has finally ended.”
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