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This podcast is supported by FX's English Teacher, a new comedy from executive producers of What We Do in the Shadows and Baskets. English Teacher follows Evan, a teacher in Austin, Texas, who learns if it's really possible to be your full self at your job, while often finding himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. FX's English Teacher premieres September 2nd on FX. Stream on Hulu.
This episode of Swindled may contain graphic descriptions or audio recordings of disturbing events which may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Be forewarned. This episode is extra heavy. It contains descriptions of child abuse and neglect, sexual assault, animal abuse, and more. You might want to skip this one if hearing about such things ruins your day. No one will blame you. As for the rest of you, enjoy. I guess.
So I want to start by acknowledging why we're here this morning. On January 3rd, a little girl died. Sorry.
Michelle Rothgeb became a first-time foster mother in 2011.
In her application, Ms. Rothgeb described her motivation for doing so as something extra. She had extra love to give, extra space in her home, and extra time on her hands. Just ready to do this, she wrote. Michelle Rothgeb, a 56-year-old single mother living in Warwick, Rhode Island, had already adopted her two grandchildren a few years earlier. She felt that she could provide a safe and caring home for any child in need.
Initially, Michelle asked to house troubled teenagers who were on the verge of aging out of the system. Ultimately, she settled on infants and preschoolers with disabilities. Rhode Island's Department of Children, Youth, and Families approved Michelle Rothgeb's application. On July 27, 2011, two-year-old Zenae was placed in Michelle's foster home. Zenae suffered from a host of medical conditions, hydrocephaly, cerebral palsy, and epilepsy, to name a few.
Zanae required a special diet. She couldn't walk, she couldn't talk, she had frequent seizures. Zanae would never be able to do the things that a quote-unquote normal child could do. But regardless, Zanae's new foster mother loved her unconditionally. And so did Zanae's brothers and sisters. Over the years, the Rothgepp family continued to grow. On January 5th, 2012, another special needs child was placed in Michelle Rothgepp's home.
Eight months later, a third foster child arrived. In May 2013, a fourth. In September 2013, a fifth and a sixth. By 2019, including Michelle's two grandkids, eight disabled children lived inside the home. Michelle Rothgeb had her hands full. Sometimes she had to rely on her 15-year-old autistic grandson for help. Thursday, January 3rd, 2019 was one of those times. Michelle Rothgeb said she had the flu.
Some of the children like Zanae, who was now 9 years old, were immunocompromised. Anyone who was feeling ill must keep their distance. That was the house rule. So that morning, Michelle instructed her grandson to give Zanae a bath. Zanae loved the water. It felt good on her hip joints, on which she had recently had surgery. Michelle or whoever was in charge that day would typically fill the bathtub with 2-3 inches of water so that Zanae could roll around and play.
At 8:30 a.m., the teenager found Zanae crawling in the hallway, covered in vomit. He cleaned her up and placed her in the bath like any other typical day. The grandson reportedly checked on Zanae three hours later. The tub had slowly drained empty, so he turned on the faucet for a refill and handed his little sister a sippy cup to drink. Michelle Rothgeb was apparently running errands or watching TV. At 4:30 p.m., Michelle Rothgeb's other adopted grandson returned home from school.
He went to use the bathroom and discovered Zanae lying face down in the waterless tub. She was unresponsive. Zanae had been left there for more than eight hours that day. Naked, cold, wet, and alone. Michelle Rothgeb instructed the oldest to call 911. She ordered the others who were capable to collect trash from around the house and hide it in the basement while she performed CPR. Nine-year-old Zanae Rothgeb was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Her body temperature was a reported 87.7 degrees. In January of 2019, Zanae Rothgeb was found unresponsive in a bathtub after being left alone for hours. Zanae and Rothgeb's seven other adopted children all had developmental issues.
According to the police report, the Rothkebs were living in squalid conditions. There was a pile of soiled diapers on the floor that had a stench of urine and feces. Detectives observed there to be bugs on the ceiling. The second bed had netting around it, and it was soiled with what appeared to be animal droppings. There was garbage on every inch of the floor, so cluttered that Zanae's wheelchair couldn't navigate through it all.
As a solution, Michelle stored the chair in her van parked in the driveway. Zanae was forced to crawl around on the filthy ground. In the bathroom, detectives found Zanae's seizure medication that had been prescribed months earlier. It was untouched, sitting on the counter, still stapled inside the paper pharmacy bags. Police also found the family's two dogs, one of which was so malnourished it had to be put down immediately. A veterinarian later said they believed the dog had been poisoned.
which has determined that the child's death was caused by complications of cerebral palsy, including her seizures, and as a result of neglect. While not representative of DCYF, this case demonstrated that our safety net is not catching every single child, and that's unacceptable.
After a three-month internal investigation into Zanei's death, Rhode Island's Department of Children, Youth and Families announced significant policy and personnel changes to its foster care system, including capping the number of children placed in a single foster home at five. DCYF Director Trista Piccola said that while the changes were in light of the recent tragedy, it was not a knee-jerk reaction.
The reforms have been in the works for a while, she said. The department just wasn't able to implement them in time to save Zenae Rothgeb's life.
Why did the system fail 9-year-olds in a Rothkip?
According to DCYF, it was for the usual reasons. The department was understaffed and underfunded in conjunction with a heavy caseload. But how the system failed Zanae was a different story. A report released in June 2019 by the Oversight Agency, the Office of the Child Advocate, placed much of the blame at DCYF's feet.
The report revealed the state ignored complaints about the adopted mother for years, ultimately concluding DCYF was partly to blame for the death. Ignoring the fact that Michelle Rothgeb should have never been licensed as a foster parent in the first place due to past criminal behavior and financial uncertainty, DCYF ignored red flag after red flag for almost a decade.
For example, in 2013, Michelle Rothgeb applied for and received free prescription baby formula from Rhode Island's Department of Health. Later that year, the DOH discovered that Rothgeb was selling that formula on Craigslist. 100% profit.
In 2015, Michelle Rothgeb herself expressed concern to DCYF about the unsanitary state of her house. However, the social worker who visited the home responded, quote, I am not worried. So, the department took no action. In 2018, Michelle Rothgeb refused access to the second floor of her house during an unannounced visit from a DCYF worker.
Rothgeb was actually flagged for that incident, but a follow-up investigation never occurred. Five months later,
DCYF approved Michelle Rothkopf's adoption of an eighth child. Representative Charlene Lima went as far as calling for the resignation of DCYF Director Trista Pakola during tonight's meeting. Every member of the House Oversight Committee asked her the same question. How did this happen? One representative said that this situation isn't evidence of a crack in the system. It's evidence of a black hole.
The remaining seven children were removed from the home after Zane's death. Michelle Rothgib was ultimately charged with one count of manslaughter, eight counts of child neglect, and one count of animal cruelty.
She remained free on bond until her trial date. Through the course of our investigation, what we discovered was a series of lapses in policy and in judgment that failed to detect significant changes in the ability of this mother to care for her children. Meanwhile, DCYF attempted to address the department's critical deficiencies. 23 additional frontline workers were hired in addition to the revamped policies in the areas of licensing, placement, and investigations.
The workers who had let Zanet slip through the cracks were no longer employed at DCYF, although they hadn't been fired. Those employees had left on their own accord to pursue other opportunities. "Too little too late," many argued. Critics of DCYF complained that the changes were not drastic enough. DCYF director Trista Piccola knew that it would not be easy when she accepted her position. Sometimes progress happens incrementally, even when it's needed overnight.
But it was her job, her responsibility to make things right. This is what she signed up for. And she was committed to ushering in that progress. She promised. But there was still a lot of work to do.
A month later, Trista Pakola's husband accepted a new job in Arizona.
First, we're working breaking news. DCYF director Trista Piccola is stepping down from her post in the next few months. Trista Piccola announced that she would be stepping down as DCYF's director. Any unfinished business would remain that way. Rhode Island's tarnished foster care program was now someone else's problem. Michelle Rothgeb had also become someone else's problem. The former foster mother sold her soiled home and started living out of her handicap-accessible van.
She solicited a peaceful place to park on Facebook using a fake name. A farmer named George Whitford offered her a spot where she stayed for five months until he discovered the middle-aged woman's true identity. George Whitford says he was conned into allowing a woman to live on his farmland. She was using...
this dead child as an excuse for people to feel sorry for her. When I found out who she was and read up on her, I was totally disgusted on who the person was in the backyard. In August 2021, Michelle Rothgeb pleaded no contest to the charges against her. On December 21st, 2021, she was scheduled for sentencing. The former foster mother spoke in court before her punishment was handed down. She apologized and accepted the shame and responsibility for what had happened.
Rothkopf's lawyers indicated that their client had a long-standing record of excellence as a selfless foster mother and that DCYF approached her repeatedly about fostering children with special needs. But state prosecutors painted a different picture of why she adopted so many children. They said Michelle Rothkopf's motivations were narcissism and greed.
Narcissism and greed, not just for money, of which she received substantial amounts, but also greed for Facebook likes, for the social media publicity, and the strangers' messages praising her perceived selflessness and adopting special needs children.
Despite receiving $4,500 a month in subsidies from the state of Rhode Island to provide for her adopted children, Michelle Rothke was tens of thousands of dollars in debt. She couldn't afford one child, much less eight. Turns out, social media clout doesn't pay the bills. Or does it? The more sickly the kids looked, the more sympathy she would receive, noted Rhode Island's Assistant Attorney General, Laura Nicholson.
The judge handed Michelle Rothgeb the maximum allowed sentence of 18 years.
The judge believed that Michelle Rothkopf's chances of rehabilitation were poor.
The Superior Court judge called Michelle Rothkab "narcissistic, abusive and cruel." He ordered her to serve the maximum sentence on all 10 charges based on the plea agreement. Rehabilitating Rhode Island's Department of Children, Youth and Families would be just as challenging. In the three years since Zenae Rothkab's death, the issues at the department have continued to mount.
Most recently, on May 3rd, 2022, DCYF and Providence Police announced an investigation into the death of another child in foster care. Tonight, lawmakers and union members say the state agency responsible for children's safety is in crisis and are demanding a top-to-bottom inspection. They called for the audit this afternoon following what they say are decades of problems at DCYF. Decades of problems.
A constant stream of bad news. From DCYF officers selling drugs out of company cars, to human trafficking in the contracted group homes, to data breaches and relying on unlicensed providers, to child deaths and near deaths where all the warning signs went ignored. Something has to change. But after every tragedy, it's the same old song and dance from those in positions of authority. We're understaffed. We're underfunded.
Meanwhile, neighboring states do more with less every day. No one has pounded the table harder for reform than a man named Nicholas Alliverdian. Nick spent much of his childhood in DCYF group homes and shelters. He had witnessed the horrors firsthand and has spent his entire teenage and adult life advocating for change. He even sued the department for how he was treated under their watch. Nicholas Alliverdian knew that tumultuous childhoods could result in adult monsters.
Nicholas Aliverdian knew that because that's exactly what he became. The secret life of an outspoken advocate for Rhode Island foster children is revealed on this episode of Swindled.
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The Department of Children, Youth and Families is a fundamentally flawed governmental agency that needs to be overseen by the state. Without this necessary support and observation of the department, kids and teenagers and adolescents, people who were in the shoes that I was in 10 years ago, would not have a chance at being successful. Nicholas Aliverdian was born on July 11, 1987, in Providence, Rhode Island.
He was named after his mother Diana's younger brother, who accidentally hanged himself at age 13 while trying to imitate a stunt he had seen performed on The Tonight Show. Darkness seemed to trail the Alliverdian family wherever they went. Nicholas' father, Jack Alliverdian, was mostly to blame. Jack was an alcoholic and an asshole. He was abusive to Diana and Nicholas and his younger brother. Jack was also consistently unemployed.
Diana kept the family fed by waiting tables, but it was never enough. This little ditty about Jack and Diane ended in late 1989. Pregnant with a third child, Diana filed for divorce and a restraining order and moved out of the couple's apartment. Taking the kids and nearly everything the couple owned, Nicholas never saw his father again.
But if he were curious, Nicholas could have scanned the police blotter or court records to find out that his old man never changed. In the following years, Jack Aliverdian was arrested multiple times for domestic assault, protective order violations, selling cocaine, and writing fraudulent checks. Oh well, life goes on. Diana remarried in 1994. Her new husband, David Rossi, was an Engelbert Humperdinck impersonator that performed at the bar and grill where she worked.
David also adopted Diane as three children. It was the only way she would agree to marry him. Probably a mistake in retrospect. The kids were absolute terrors, especially the oldest, nine-year-old Nicholas. He just wouldn't listen in school, David Rossi told the Providence Journal. He hit the mother, hit the grandmother all the time, hit his siblings. I used to have to hold him down and he'd be spitting at me.
We had counselors come in the house. We took him to see counselors, put him in Butler Hospital, put him in Bradley Hospital. He was wicked. Nicholas Aliverdian's behavior only grew worse as he got older. In 1999, he was admitted to a treatment program after being diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder and ADD. When he was discharged, Nicholas was sent to live with a foster family.
Nicholas' mother was struggling with addiction at the time after her father died and her marriage with David Rossi was falling apart. She was in no shape to raise three children. Ultimately, all three of the Alliverdi and Rossi siblings ended up in group homes and foster care. Nicholas was placed in Rhode Island's Department of Children, Youth, and Families night-to-night program.
Due to a lack of foster homes, a group of orphans was dumped at the Rhode Island State House at 5:30 a.m. every day, where they would wait for hours to find out which temporary shelter they would sleep at that night. They were fed fast food and given ancient magazines to read to pass the time. Nicholas Aliverdian repeated this process every day for 15 months, beginning in March 2002. He was 14 years old. It was a traumatic experience, to say the least.
"It's scary. Ridiculously scary," Nicholas told journalist Bob Kerr. "There are punks in there. They took my sneakers, my clothing. I was threatened, assaulted. I saw kids hit each other with hockey sticks. I never learned how to be a kid," Aliverdian said. If there were any silver lining to the constant emotional and physical abuse Nicholas Aliverdian suffered in DCYF's night-to-night program, it's that he routinely brushed shoulders with some of Rhode Island's politicians in the state building.
Nicholas was attracted to that environment. The red ties, the handshakes, the attention. Eventually, Nicholas talked his way into a job as a General Assembly Page and Legislative Aid that reported directly to the Rhode Island Speaker of the House. According to Nicholas Aliverdian, he spent his days drafting legislation, communicating with constituents, and performing research before being shipped to whatever group home had an empty bed. He was still only 14 years old.
But thanks to DCYF, Nicholas had a lot of life experience and a lot to say. The child welfare system in Rhode Island is broken, he would tell every student that pretended to listen. There's no schooling. There's not enough food. There's inadequate medical care. There's endless violence. Something must be done, Aliverdian demanded. Geez, kid, you sound like a lobbyist, a lawmaker once told him. Yeah, well, maybe I am.
At 15 years old, Nicholas Aliverdian took a leave of absence from his government job and founded a group called Nexus Government, a nonprofit lobbying firm to advocate for the rights of children and adolescents who were wards of the state. I chose to fight for the rights of myself as a kid in DCY of care and fight for the rights of those who were actually beating me up. Nicholas recommended that every orphan attend one school and remain in that one school for the entire academic year.
He urged the state to provide access to adequate medical care, and he demanded orphans be allowed to participate in extracurricular and academic activities. All reasonable, and most would suggest good ideas. But according to Nicholas Aliverdian, those recommendations by his lobbying firm made him public enemy number one.
Eventually, Aliverdian claims, certain corrupt judges and lawmakers grew tired of his crusade. In 2002, Nicholas Aliverdian was placed in a group home far away from Rhode Island.
First to some place called Boys Town in Omaha, Nebraska, and later Manatee Palms in Sarasota, Florida. At these group homes, Aliverdian claims he was consistently abused. Night to night was like Disneyland compared to Manatee Palms, he told the Providence Journal. Your worst nightmare, multiply it by 5,000. There were rapes, there were beatings.
Nicholas Alliverdian described the facilities as for-profit, felon-hiring, barbed-wire kid jails next door to Walmarts where adolescents were sent without jury trials. He said there were fist-sized holes in every wall. Manatee Palms was just like the movie Fight Club, Alliverdian wrote. The staff kept him over-medicated. A caretaker named Rhonda raped him. It was torture.
Nicholas was a self-described geeky and frail little boy who just wanted to read and listen to classical music.
At Manatee Palms, Nicholas Aliverdian had no contact with the outside world. He was not allowed to go to school. He was not allowed to speak to a lawyer or contact the clergy.
There was no way to report the abuse he was experiencing. Nicholas was forced to sit in his room, day after day, drooling on himself from the cocktail of medications. Pure hell for someone like himself, a self-reported genius with an exceptionally high IQ. By the time a caseworker from Rhode Island DCYF went to Florida to check on him, Nicholas Aliverdian was nearing 18 years old. He would officially become an adult, no longer property of the state.
As soon as he was free, Nicholas returned to Rhode Island where he enrolled in classes at Providence College and the Harvard Extension School. He also self-published a book reflecting on his time as a foster child and the resulting PTSD. "While I may no longer be the age of an orphan and am now an adult, I, like all adults, have had successes and failures.
I do, however, still consider myself to be on that orphan-filled vagabond train of life, living with a sense of unrehearsed spontaneity. It is this Dickensian spirit that most orphans possess, this craggy magic bursting within us that pushes us ever further to the next train stop of life, listening for that whistle to blow until we are swept away in the next enthralling adventure.
The years have passed by quite quickly and much to my detriment. I attempt to remain enticed by that bright, thrilling excitement of life. But with illness, tragedy, loss, and the shackles of the horrific abuse that I experienced as a child at the hands of the state, it is ever so difficult to live and not feel as if death is nigh, to breathe and ponder as one last, and write, and not be weary.
But sometimes, even now, at night, I wake up, and I'm ever so still as I fear that I am still there. Still being beaten with a baseball bat. Still having feces shoved down my throat and smeared across my face. Still being injected with Thorazine in my buttocks. Still being sexually assaulted. Still being held against the wall with one hand tightly gripping my neck as my feet dangled below. Still having urine poured on me in my sleep.
Still being kicked, punched, locked alone in a windowless dark closet ironically called the Quiet Room, without food or water for days on end. Still. Still. Still. Nicholas Alaverdean would never forget what happened to him, and he couldn't just sit on his hands while it was happening to someone else. So, Alaverdean decided to put his education on hold and refocus on his original mission.
Once again, Nicholas Alaverdean would become the public voice of the Rhode Island orphan. Most of the social workers that I know mean well, but they are not given the resources, they are not given the time, they don't have the abilities to do what they need to do to get their job done, and that's unacceptable. It's horrific.
In early 2011, Nicholas Aliverdian finally got the government's attention. He filed multiple lawsuits against the state of Rhode Island, the DCYF, and several privately owned residential facilities that contracted with them. 18 individuals were named in the complaints, including Rhode Island's governor, the judge that sent Aliverdian out of state, and numerous lawyers, doctors, and social workers.
Nicholas Aliverdian argued that state officials knowingly allowed the abusive treatment he received in Rhode Island's foster care system. He claimed the trauma associated with the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse he suffered left him unable to live a normal life.
aliverdian said he has flashbacks nightmares and chronic anxiety and he wanted to be financially compensated also new at noon a federal judge is holding a hearing today on a lawsuit filed by a young man against the dcyf nicholas alvadiran claims he was abused as a teenager while in state care he's now 23 years old the judge is set to hear several motions
Nicholas Aliverdian also wanted Rhode Island lawmakers to adopt legislation that would improve the care of the youths in its custody. He wanted the state to establish an emergency oversight committee to review the activities of the DCYF. He wanted to establish a children's bill of rights because he claimed the foster system infringes on their constitutional rights. And he wanted out-of-state placements outlawed entirely so that no other innocent children could be abused as he had been.
To rally support for his cause, Nicholas Aliverdian performed a media blitz. He sat down for interviews with local news channels, wrote opinion pieces for the local newspaper, and scheduled a press conference in the Statehouse Rotunda to share his story with the world. I was subjected to torture, beatings, assault in various forms. I was refused to contact anybody, anybody at all. These facilities are dangerous. My question to Rhode Island:
Why are we paying for them? They cut staff. They fill the beds, the population, and then some. They cut services and then they reaped in the profits. This isn't AIG. This isn't Goldman Sachs. It's kids. And you know what?
kids are important. I cannot recount the amount of support that I received for the legislation that we hopefully will introduce by the end of the deadline, March 3rd. And I'm happy to have here with me Representative Roberto Da Silva, Democrat of East Providence and Pawtucket, who is supporting a bill that would essentially end out-of-state placement. The Department of Children, Youth and Families issued a statement in response to Nicholas Aliverdian's claims
They said the department had no documented evidence of substantiated abuse and that their data does not suggest any pattern of widespread abuse in Rhode Island. "Any report of suspected abuse is fully investigated. We don't know what Mr. Aliverdian's specific allegations are, but we'll clearly be happy to investigate them if they are provided to us." DCYF also defended its expensive practice of sending kids out of state.
Kevin Alcoyne, the department's deputy director at the time, told the New Hampshire Register that there are children who come into their care with highly specialized treatment needs for which the department must go outside the state to identify the programs best suited for those children. It's not ideal, but they deal with complex behavior and psychological needs that cannot be met at a local facility.
In January 2012, Representative Roberto da Silva of East Providence introduced Aliverdian's proposed legislation to Rhode Island's House of Representatives, but it was never adopted. The bill died in committee after the Rhode Island Family Court Chief Justice issued a letter to General Assembly leaders opposing the measure. Aliverdian's lawsuits, on the other hand, were still alive. That same year, Nicholas Aliverdian received a letter from the state
As soon as he read it, Nicholas knew they were out for retribution. A former orphan who was in DCYF custody receives a medical bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The letter comes while Alaverdean is suing this long list of former and current state officials and the DCYF for how he was treated while in state care. He alleges he was physically and sexually assaulted while he was moved in and out of some 20 group homes
in three states. And it shows that even though I paid in blood, I still have some worth to the state of Rhode Island as a dollar sign apparently. And it's incredibly, incredibly despicable. Nicholas Aliverdian refused to pay the $207,000 the Executive Office of Health and Human Services said he owed for various medical expenses he accrued while in state custody.
But in August 2013, Alliverdian did agree to settle his lawsuits against the state if the medical lien against him was waived. The state of Rhode Island did not acknowledge any liability concerning Alliverdian's claims and said that the lien referred to Medicaid funds spent on behalf of Alliverdian, which, by law, the state was required to attempt to recoup since he was suing them. Nicholas Alliverdian also received $70,000 as part of the settlement, but that amount was not disclosed.
In the following years, Nicholas Aliverdian relocated to Ohio, launched a non-profit to rebuild the city of Dayton, and moved out of the country. In January 2020, he reignited his campaign against Rhode Island's DCYF. It was his last opportunity to make a difference. Nicholas Aliverdian had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
"Unfortunately, this has come much too soon in my life," he told radio station WPRO. "I'm only 32 years old, and I wish I had the ability to live much longer to accomplish the things that I set about to do so many years ago." To this day, the legislation has not been passed, and it's very unfortunate considering the amount of damage that this does to children and adolescents when they are sent so far from home and so far from New England.
Providence Representative Raymond Hull reintroduced the Aliverdian's bill on February 14, 2020, and once again, it did not pass. Two weeks later, Nicholas Aliverdian died. His crusade was incomplete, but his legacy still very much alive. Support for Swindled comes from Rocket Money.
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Live and local news and information on WPRO, Providence, a Cumulus station. Good evening in the Revolution Softwash News Center. I'm Paul Zangary with the 8 o'clock WPRO News. Sad news to pass along, a voice you've heard on the air here on WPRO, Nicholas Alverde, and he grew up in foster care here in
Here in Rhode Island, he sued DCYF and made it his mission to fight against what he described as abuses in the state's child care system. He has passed away from a long battle with cancer, leaving his wife and two children. Nicholas Aliverdian was 32. On February 29, 2020.
Various associates and journalists received an email from the Aliverdian family office. It was from Louise Aliverdian, Nicholas' wife, informing those who might have known him that he had lost his battle with cancer. "No words can express what has happened," she wrote. "Nicholas was always such a person that had energy and life and belief in his cause, and that was being a warrior for foster children. Rhode Island and the world have lost someone who really went to work for children."
Louise Aliverdian said she took Nick to the hospital on Friday the 28th. He was having complications because cancer had recently spread to his kidneys and lungs. He died the following day. "He always had a real affinity for the ocean," Louise wrote. She said she had promised him that she would scatter his ashes at sea. An obituary for Nicholas Aliverdian was posted online soon after. It was quite verbose, nearly 1,000 words long, but it provided more detail about the crusader's final moments.
At the bedside were Mrs. Alverdean, their two children, and extended family. His last words were, quote, At the time of his passing, the obituary reads, A film and score which held special meaning.
In Rhode Island, Nicholas Aliverdian held special meaning to those who worked with him. When the news spread, members of the Rhode Island House of Representatives introduced a condolence resolution to remember their old friend publicly and the causes for which he spent his life fighting. Lawmakers were urged to honor Nicholas by Nicholas's widow, Louise. Proceed. I'm to join in the memory of my friend, and I guess some of the people may know him also, Nicholas Aliverdian, who had a battle with cancer.
A very, very smart individual when I started here some eight years ago. And I say this on purpose. And I say this to you young people that are standing there. Have passion in what you do and never give up on it. He had that. And it touched me to be honored to get up to say something on his behalf today. Because he believed in something that happened to him. And he looked forward to the change in DCYF.
I ask that all my colleagues remember him. God bless. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Representative Hull, thank you for putting this in. I remember Nicholas coming in here and advocating, and he certainly had his challenges in life, and he tried to fight through them all. His passing is a very, very sad incident for us. May you rest in peace, Nicholas.
Not so fast. Many people were skeptical that Nicholas Aliverdian had died, and they had their reasons. First of all, that obituary is ridiculous. Fear not and run toward the bliss of the sun. Those were his last words. Give me a break. The entire thing reads like a list of greatest hits written by a self-important narcissist. And according to many, that's exactly who Nicholas Aliverdian was, or is.
Secondly, those who tried to confirm Nicholas' death independently were never able to do so. Many of the journalists who received that email from Louise Salavardian notifying them of his passing never reported on the story because they had no concrete evidence it was true. They couldn't look up local records because Louise had refused to tell them where they lived. It was a security issue, she told them. Louise said the family had received threats resulting from Nicholas' battle with the DCYF.
Finally, there was a motive for Nicholas to disappear. It just wasn't public yet. But authorities in Ohio and Utah knew. And obviously, Nicholas Aliverdian did too. It all started more than 15 years earlier at Sinclair Community College in Dayton. January 2008, a woman says she met Nicholas Aliverdian on MySpace. He was going by the name Nicholas Rossi. He invited her to lunch one day, and she accepted.
After their meal, Nicholas Rossi escorted the woman to her next class but cornered her in a basement stairwell. She said Rossi pinned her against a wall and started groping her while masturbating. That woman told the Providence Journal that she told him to get off of her and he replied, "I'm almost done. Don't be a bitch." And then he ejaculated onto the wall. The woman said she went to class afterward and when she came out, there he was, waiting for her in the same stairwell.
She said Nicholas apologized to her. He said he couldn't help it. "You are just so beautiful. Please don't tell anybody." The woman told everybody, including the cops, who found plenty of encrusted evidence. Another woman came forward, who said she met Nicholas Rossi on Myspace, and that he had assaulted her the exact same way. Nicholas Rossi was charged with one count of sexual imposition and one count of public indecency. He spent the next six years fighting the case.
Nicholas Rossi also spent the next six years trying to discredit and harass his accuser. He posted numerous photos of her children online, along with her name and address and phone number. To garner sympathy, he showed up to court hearings with a cane and a limp. After he was convicted, Nicholas Rossi fabricated evidence to request a new trial. He had photoshopped a MySpace blog post in which the victim admitted to lying under oath.
Luckily for her, Nicholas, the genius, picked the wrong day of the week for the corresponding date the blog was supposedly published. Not a mistake a computer would make. The only explanation was human error. The judge denied Nicholas Rossi's motion. His name would appear on the sex offenders registry until 2023. In response, Nicholas Rossi sued his accuser for libel. He accused the woman of besmirching his good name by posting about him online.
The judge threw the case out, having found no merit in Nicholas Rossi's claim. Nicholas Rossi was not pleased. He joined men's rights activist groups online and adopted incel-like beliefs. He self-published an essay titled "My Personal 9/11" in which he blamed his victim for ruining his life. Her acts are tantamount to flying planes into my twin pillars of personal success and public service.
Apparently jet fuel can melt in cell dreams. In the summer of 2008, Nicholas Rossi relocated to Orem, Utah. He started dating a 21-year-old woman he met on MySpace. After a few long weeks, that woman broke up with Rossi when he became unwelcomingly violent during sex, and he was always borrowing money that he never paid back. Rossi apologized and invited his ex-girlfriend over to his apartment, where he promised to repay what he owed.
Instead, when the woman arrived on the evening of September 14th, 2008, Nicholas Rossi blocked the exit. He pushed her onto the couch, unzipped his pants, and violently raped her. "This is your fault," he told her. "You are mentally unstable and too emotional to deal with." The woman escaped the apartment when Rossi became distracted by a text message. She reported to a local hospital and told them she had been sexually assaulted by her ex.
The woman told police the two were dating, but Aliverdian, who went by Nicholas Rossi, became increasingly rough with her. The woman told police he owed her money, and Aliverdian lured her to his apartment, promising to repay her, but instead sexually assaulted her. By the end of 2009, Nicholas Rossi had fled Utah and returned to Rhode Island, where he rented an apartment in Pawtucket.
In July 2010, he invited over a woman he had been chatting with online. She was an artist. What a coincidence. He was too. You should come check out my art studio, he told her. When the woman arrived, there was no art studio. Just a sad, horny man blocking the door and breathing heavily. Rossi snatched the woman's cell phone out of her hands and hid it somewhere in his apartment. Just come sit on my lap, he pleaded. Just kiss me.
When the woman refused, Nicholas Rossi became more desperate and manipulative. He told her that he would kill himself by stabbing a knife into his heart if she left. The woman started screaming and demanded her phone back. Rossi didn't want to alert his neighbors, so he relented. The woman left the apartment and walked to a nearby grocery store. She told a clerk that she had been held against her will. The cops arrived at Nicholas Rossi's apartment to question him.
No charges were filed, but he was taken to a local hospital for a psychological evaluation. Five months later, police were again called to Nicholas Rossi's apartment. This time, a visibly upset woman answered the door. She had swelling around her eyes and marks on her neck and arms. Rossi and the woman continued to scream at one another in the officer's presence. According to the woman, the dispute resulted from Rossi getting upset about their visiting friend's crying child.
Tempers flared until Nicholas Rossi slapped the woman to the ground, and that's when she called the cops. He was arrested on the spot, and on his way to jail, he caused quite the scene. Police had to physically carry Rossi out of his apartment, and pepper sprayed him into submission. According to the Providence Journal, he pleaded no contest to a charge of domestic assault. Charges of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct were dismissed.
But before his notoriety as a child welfare advocate in Rhode Island, police records show he was arrested for hitting a woman at his Pawtucket apartment in November 2010. During that incident, records show Aliverdian, who was known as Nicholas Rossi at the time, was screaming loudly and hitting his head against the bars of the police cruiser when he was detained.
A month later, he was arrested on an outstanding warrant. Then five months after that, in May 2011, Olliverdian was arrested for violating a protective order. Less than a month later, the police in Pawtucket received another report about Nicholas Rossi. A woman reported that she had gone on a date with Nicholas the previous night after the two had met online. She said they went back to his apartment afterward, where he spent the entire evening begging for sex, but she had denied his advances.
This enraged Nicholas Rossi, who demanded the woman pay him back for dinner. He drove her car to an ATM and forced the woman to withdraw $200. She had no choice, the woman said. She was afraid for her life.
Nicholas Rossi then drove the woman back to his apartment, where he forced her to sign a paper while he video recorded. It was some kind of legal document that stated that she was forfeiting her right to pursue legal action against him, and that the money she gave him was for therapy for him due to her violent actions and her sexual addiction. That woman did not press charges.
But the next one did. In May 2011, Nicholas Rossi's wife of six months walked into the Pawtucket police station. She said her husband, who she was in the process of divorcing, had violated the restraining order she had against him. Rossi kept calling her and threatening her. She was afraid that he was going to kill her, the visibly shaken woman reported. A warrant was issued for Nicholas Rossi's arrest.
But it wasn't all bad news for the 25-year-old serial abuser and rapist. In 2013, the Rhode Island DCYF offered to settle the lawsuit that Rossi's orphaned crusading alter ego Nicholas Alaverdean had filed against him two years earlier. A $70,000 windfall. It was time to celebrate. Nicholas Rossi contacted his adoptive stepfather, David Rossi, for the first time in years. Nicholas demanded that David meet him for dinner at Fleming's Steakhouse.
David Rossi told the Providence Journal that Nicholas was trying to impress a girl by throwing his money around and introducing her to the Humperdinck impersonator when Nicholas excused himself to the restroom that evening. David said the young woman with Nicholas confided in him, quote, She said, Mr. Rossi, I've been trying to shake him for two weeks. He won't leave me alone. Feeling unwelcome in his home state, Nicholas Rossi reverted to Nicholas Aliverdian and returned to Dayton, Ohio.
There, the Crusader found a new cause to champion: public and political recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Alaverdean even made an appearance on the local news to educate the people. I think the most important thing to remember here is that the Pope recognized this as the first genocide of the 20th century. We are not dealing with a single shooting or a bombing. We are dealing with the killing of 1.5 million people.
Nicholas Aliverdian also found a new wife in Dayton. He met Catherine at a Mormon singles event in 2015. Years later, Aliverdian's obituary would read that he was a devout Catholic. The couple was married on October 14th, 2015. The very next day, Catherine said Nicholas became controlling and violent. She told the Providence Journal that Aliverdian forced her to wear certain things, like skirts with pantyhose with absolutely no tears. No tears. Or else.
He literally wanted me to stay confined to the house, Catherine told the newspaper. There was this image he was going for, the strong husband that provided for his family, and I had to dress a certain way, have my hair a certain way. After seven months of marriage, abuse, and near total isolation, Catherine filed for divorce on the grounds of extreme cruelty. She also took out a restraining order against Nicholas, who moved out of their shared residence and took all the marital furnishings and household goods with him.
He also never paid back more than $50,000 that Catherine had loaned him to help keep his nonprofit organization afloat. Speaking of which, while in Ohio, Alaverdean had also reconnected with his former foster parents, Charles and Sharon Lane. Nicholas used their names on the organizing documents for his nonprofit. They had no clue. It also took them a while to realize that Nicholas Alaverdean had stolen Charles Lane's identity.
Aliverdian had convinced the IRS to send him a copy of his former foster father's tax return. He used the information to obtain 22 credit cards and loans, ran up debts totaling almost $200,000 and then disappeared. Authorities say this is when Nicholas Aliverdian moved overseas and soon after orchestrated his death. Investigators believe that Aliverdian knew that fraud charges were inevitable and he already had another warrant out for his arrest for failing to register as a sex offender.
So Nicholas Alivredian invented cancer. He invented a way out. He invented Louise, his supposed widow with the two kids, who sent the emails and called the journalists to make the story appear legit. But Nicholas wasn't as clever as he thought. Certain authorities were on to him almost immediately. Rhode Island State Police convinced the local Catholic church to cancel a memorial mass that Louise Alivredian had organized in honor of her dead husband.
Father Healy, the priest at that church, said he received some very angry emails from Louise after the plans were scrapped.
When former state representative Brian Coogan heard about the possibility that Nicholas Aliverdian had faked his death, he wasn't surprised at all. He's a con artist. He's a con man is what he is. At one point, Brian Coogan and Nicholas Aliverdian were very close. In fact, Coogan and his wife even considered adopting Nicholas to help him escape DCYF's night-to-night program that was causing the teenager such grief.
However, Coogan ultimately decided against it after hearing from a state judge. The late judge asked me to not adopt this kid that, you know, there's something, you know, that something was wrong. I should not adopt him. Tons of red flags. He would come up to the state house and claim that people abused him, assaulted him, crying wolf all the time. There was a point where the reps and myself included didn't stop to believe in him, actually. But Coogan and Oliverdian continued their relationship.
Nicholas even served as Coogan's campaign manager when he was trying to reclaim a seat for House District 64 after losing the primary. That's when Coogan says he learned how vindictive Nicholas Aliverdian could be. Coogan claims that Nicholas threw him under the bus for stealing another candidate's campaign signs.
According to the police report, when Coogan tried to steal a sign on Summit Street last week, his motorcycle tipped over and another sign fell off the bike. The two left without either sign. Coogan is now launching a ride-in campaign for the statehouse after losing the primary to Helder Cunha. Coogan's former campaign manager says his old boss is a bully. He actually stole Helder Cunha's sign.
You saw him steal signs? Absolutely. Did you ever report that to the police department? No, because he threatened me not to. Brian Coogan, former foster parents, ex-wives, Rhode Island State Police, and others believed that Nicholas Aliverdian was still alive. Luis Aliverdian, who was almost certainly a figment of Nicholas' imagination, was adamant that he was not. Luis had caught wind of the rumors and sent out a slew of defensive emails that read very similar to the way Nicholas Aliverdian used to write.
Unless my husband was cloned and died in my arms and faked cancer diagnosis, treatment, and heart disease slash heart attacks for months before that, he passed away in my arms. Yet, Luis Aliverdian refused to produce Nicholas' death certificate. Nobody was buying it, especially the police in Utah, who had finally gotten around to testing a rape kit from a sexual assault committed in Orem ten years earlier.
The DNA from Utah matched DNA scraped off a wall in an earlier sexual assault committed in Dayton, Ohio. The suspect was Nicholas Rossi. No, we knew that it was not real all along. I mean, really, he faked his death, you know, before we charged him with the crime. And we charged him with the crime because we knew he was alive.
In September 2020, court documents were unsealed, formally charging Nicholas Alliverdian with the rape in Utah. Now they just had to locate him. Where oh where could Nicholas Alliverdian be? In the past, Alliverdian told people that he was moving to Ireland or Germany. The authorities weren't convinced. Nicholas Alliverdian could be anywhere. It seemed like it was going to take a once-in-a-generation cataclysmic event to find their man.
We're just beginning to know some of the details about this man. And my guess is we'll be shocked when we learn more.
A man suspected in a sexual assault case in Utah years ago is now in police custody in Scotland tonight. Nicholas Rossi has gone by a variety of names over the years, one being Nicholas Oliverdian. Now, according to a memorial page set up on Twitter for him, he actually died in February of 2020 from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. However, that wasn't the case. Arthur Knight was a mild-mannered and dapper young chap.
His neighbors in Glasgow, Scotland said he was always wearing a three-piece suit with little pocket squares and some kind of fedora or bowler hat. His English accent was so proper he could have been mistaken as a member of the royal family. The Scottish joked behind his back. Arthur Knight and his wife Miranda moved to Glasgow sometime in 2021. They'd married in Bristol a year earlier. Miranda's brother recalls not one friend or relative showing up for the groom.
But Arthur had no trouble making acquaintances in the new neighborhood. He could regularly be found having a pint at the pub. Arthur told people he worked as a professor at the university. He said he was writing a book on religious education and launching a political podcast from his living room. "How boring. He was friendly and polite, but there was something about him that gave me the creeps," a neighbor called Anna told the London Times. Arthur Knight was always complaining about Brexit or his numerous physical ailments.
But he was a nice guy. Everybody had always told him. Everybody had been mistaken. Anna said that one day she heard Arthur Knight screaming at a delivery person who was apparently running a bit behind schedule that afternoon. A proper full-on meltdown, Anna recalled. It was after that that she and others noticed how angry Arthur Knight would become at the slightest inconvenience. He obviously wasn't the person he pretended to be. It didn't matter what other people thought about him. Arthur Knight's life was quaint and good.
until December 2021. That's when Arthur Knight contracted a severe case of COVID-19. He was having trouble breathing. Miranda took Arthur to Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, where he was placed on a ventilator. Arthur Knight survived, but his life would never be the same. The details of what happened next are still a bit unclear. Reportedly, Interpol received a tip that a fugitive rapist was living in Scotland and had just checked into the hospital.
This tip was passed along to the hospital staff who swabbed Arthur Knight's DNA. When the sample was run through an international database, they discovered that Arthur Knight was actually a 34-year-old man named Nicholas Aliverdian. He was wanted for fraud, rape, and identity theft halfway around the world. That's why the Sexual Assault Kitten Initiative, which is funded by the federal government, the Department of Justice, is so valuable because it allows jurisdictions who have
evidence of sexual assault to enter into a database. Additionally, there were scars all over Arthur Knight's arms as if he were in the process of having tattoos removed. You could still kind of make out what the images used to be. There was an anchor with a rope on his left arm. Below that was a depiction of the Greek god Titan holding up the heavens. On his left wrist was a cladda, the Irish's symbol for love, loyalty and friendship.
The tattoos were exact replicas of the ones on Nicholas Aliverdian's arms. And there were more. On Arthur Knight's right shoulder appeared to be the coat of arms for Brown University. Arthur Knight never attended Brown University. Neither did Nicholas Aliverdian for that matter. But he did have that tattoo. As well as a cluster of feathers right below it. Arthur Knight had the same design.
When it was announced that Scottish authorities had arrested the man suspected of being Nicholas Alliverdian, former friends, family, and lovers came out of the woodwork. They started digging into his past. It was discovered that Nicholas Alliverdian never graduated from Harvard as he had claimed. In fact, almost every achievement about which Alliverdian had endlessly bragged turned out to be grossly exaggerated or flat-out untrue.
It made people in Rhode Island second guess what Aliverdian was best known for. His abuse claims while he was in foster care. Was that even true? It puts everything into question now. All of his stories. Even if they are true, people are going to doubt them now because of the path that he has carved over the last decade. Nicholas Aliverdian's recent exposure also unearthed new victims.
Navsika Antipas, a vegan celebrity in Canada, said she hired a man named Nicholas Knight Brown on Upwork, the freelancer marketplace. Navsika wanted to expand and promote her international food business to the United Kingdom. Nicholas Knight Brown, a marketing expert living in the UK, seemed like the perfect hire.
Soon, Nicholas Knight Brown gained access to Nausicaa's business and set himself up with a $100,000 a year salary. He would call and check in with his boss often, but rarely produced.
Nafsika told the Providence Journal, quote,
The first time she confronted Nicholas Knight Brown about not producing, he told her that she was just paranoid. Nafsika had admitted to him that she had been scammed before, during their initial meeting. As more time passed, it became apparent to Nafsika that she was being scammed again. Nicholas Knight Brown always had an excuse. His wife was in the hospital, his dogs were sick, he had asthma or migraine, or he was going away for his second honeymoon.
After four months of no results, Nafsika decided to pull the plug. She sent Nicholas a text on April 22, 2020, part of a red quote. "Hi Nicholas, hope you're feeling better. I spoke to my accountant today and we agree that I cannot keep paying you your fee until you show me your work. By now, you were supposed to have raised sufficient funds for the TV show and other products we had discussed.
Nicholas Knight Brown responded kindly. Just kidding, he flew into a rage. "Raise sufficient funds for the TV show. Do you mean the program I'm currently working with the insurance company to get your money back? I'll wait for you to wake so we can talk about this before I reply to your nonsensical comment."
Absolutely appalled by your comments, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt, and we can speak when it's morning there. I am absolutely appalled. I will be happy to show you my work. I am shocked, appalled, and abhorred that you would insinuate that I've done nothing for you. We are on the brink of massive online sales with a correlating PR campaign on two continents, and here you are patronizing me and telling me I've done nothing. Text me when you're awake, and we will talk."
And that was just the start. Nicholas Knight Brown then proceeded to harass Nafsika's parents and threatened to take her father's company to court. He also created fictitious social media accounts and websites to slander Nafsika Antipas' business.
The Google search results for her name were flooded with misinformation, in which Nicholas warned others that Nofsika's products were unsafe. He urged all vegans to boycott her. Nicholas also sent Nofsika a copy of her own driver's license photo with "Fraud Alert" typed underneath in bright red lettering. It was a threat. "You have one hour and 17 minutes before settlement negotiations are off the table," he warned.
Nofseeka remained quiet but hired a private investigator to learn more about this Nicholas Knight Brown. But there was nothing. From what the PI gathered, this person did not even exist. Nofseeka says her experience with Nicholas Knight Brown cost her a total of $200,000. She lost $40,000 by paying his wages and another $30,000 in damage control. Then there was the cost of the private investigator and so on. It was a nightmare. But it was over.
The last time Nafsika heard from Nicholas Knight Brown, she received a letter from his lawyer demanding $70,000 in unpaid wages. In response, Nafsika's lawyer demanded Nicholas return the $40,000 that he had been paid for the work he failed to do. The harassment stopped.
But a few months later, she saw Nicholas Knight Brown's face on the news. You know, he's gone to great lengths to hide his whereabouts, and he went to great lengths, I believe, to get out of the hospital in Scotland, so far as even trying to hire a private ambulance to be able to get away. Arthur Knight tried to flee the hospital when he realized his charade was over. He was caught, but Scottish authorities let him out on bail while he awaits extradition to Utah, even as an obvious flight risk.
There were conditions, however. Arthur Knight had to abide by a 6 p.m. curfew, and he was subject to random checkups by the police. During one of those checkups, authorities discovered that Arthur's oxygen mask that he had been wearing ever since his battle with COVID was not even attached to the canister. He had no trouble breathing unaided. It was just another ruse.
On January 20th, 2022, Arthur Knight failed to show up for his first extradition hearing. A warrant was issued for his arrest. Scottish authorities went to his flat and broke down the door with a battering ram. They brought him out in his wheelchair. He was wearing purple polka-dotted pajamas.
Nicholas Aliverdian, who went by the name Arthur Knight in Scotland, has been arrested after not showing up to a Scottish court in Edinburgh Thursday. The 34-year-old was granted bail last week after his arrest in a Glasgow hospital as authorities in the U.S. seek his extradition back to Utah. The next day, Arthur Knight rode into court in his electric wheelchair while wearing an oxygen mask.
Miranda trailed behind with the oxygen tank. There was no lawyer by his side. During the hearing, Arthur Knight refused to admit that he was Nicholas Alavridian or Nicholas Rossi or any of the 16 total aliases he had been known to use. He did admit that he was born in Ireland under a different name, Nicholas Brown Knight, but he offered no proof.
Coincidentally, Arthur Knight is the name of a famous local radio DJ in Rhode Island, while Nicholas Brown was the founder of Brown University. This time, Arthur Knight was ordered to be held in custody for being a significant flight risk. However, he was out on bail again two weeks later after his extradition hearing was postponed. Once again a free man, Arthur Knight and his wife hit the media circuit. I nearly died!
I nearly died and we are terrified. After so many years, I know him inside out. I know my husband does not have tendencies as a rapist. He is going to be needing a...
very large team on the pitch to try to say that I am a rapist because not only are we terrified because this is a vicious lie but we are also incredibly disgusted by the fact that we now have to live our lives in a secretive way because my wife can't even walk down the pavement to get to point him out
Arthur and Miranda Knight appeared on Scotland's STV to lament how the Scottish and American authorities and the media had ruined their lives. The whole thing was preposterous, they claimed, a vicious lie. Arthur had never even been to the United States. The couple also granted interviews to the Providence Journal and the local TV news channels WPRI and FOX 13.
Arthur told every journalist that asked that it was simply a case of mistaken identity. In fact, the couple claimed three other individuals had been arrested in France, Russia, and the U.S. for the same case. But, as usual, they offered no proof. Regarding the DNA match, Arthur Knight said there was no DNA match. It was another fabrication by the police. End of story.
Another topic of interest was the accused rapist's tattoos. In several instances, Arthur Knight delightfully revealed his bare arms to prove that there was no ink, but any scarring that might have been present from attempted removal was indecipherable, considering most of the interviews were held over Zoom. However, the BBC interviewed Arthur and Miranda Knight in person in early March 2022, when journalist Stephen Godden asked to see the suspect's forearms. Arthur Knight refused.
Is it worth seeing your left forearm? Because I mean that tattoo had a look... That picture had a tattoo on the left forearm. There. I showed you the left forearm. I just showed you a photo of it. Yeah, yeah, but could I... I mean, could you just raise up... Honestly, I'm exhausted. It's nothing personal. I'm just exhausted. To put bluntly, are you a rapist? No. I'm a lot of things. I have many flaws. But to call me a rapist...
Later, Arthur Knight hosted a press conference. Sensing a waste of time, only a handful of journalists attended. It was more the same defensive talking points coming from Arthur. The only notable moment was when a man wearing leopard print leggings, later self-identified as Arthur Knight's friend, stood up and admonished the journalist, quote, quote,
The truth, according to former friend Brian Coogan, was that Arthur Knight was Nicholas Alavridian. The Providence Journal and a local news crew arranged a FaceTime meeting between the two. When it was over, there was no doubt in his mind.
Nicholas Albertian's stepfather agreed.
WJAR in Providence showed David Rossi photos and video of the man insisting that he was Arthur Knight. David Rossi labeled it Nicholas' typical bullshit. That's my son. There he is, right there. That's Nicky. What makes you think it's him? Because I know my son. I just know my son. That's definitely Nicky.
He's over, but it's him. Arthur Knight responded to the confirmations by the people he claimed to have never met. He said David Rossi's adoption of Nicholas Aliverdian wasn't even legal, and he repeatedly defended Nicholas Aliverdian's actions in great detail. Arthur Knight said he had studied the cases in Ohio and Utah. He blamed the victims and the shoddy work of the prosecutors, particularly Utah County Attorney David Levitt, which brings us to another coincidence.
Arthur Knight hired a lawyer in America named Craig Johnson. Craig Johnson is a former Utah County prosecutor who resigned from office in 2020 after prosecutors alleged that he accepted Utah Jazz basketball tickets from a defense attorney against whom he had criminal cases pending. The Utah County prosecutor that brought the case against Craig Johnson was David Levitt. It appears there is an axe to grind.
On April 7, 2022, Arthur Knight showed up two hours late for his preliminary extradition hearing, again without an attorney. Knight was lugging around a microphone, though, and interviewing reporters on the street. He said he was making a podcast and negotiating a film deal. The next time Knight made a court appearance, he brought Becky Houston, a solicitor, to represent him.
During that hearing, Houston referred to Arthur Knight as Mr. Rossi, and he erupted in protest. It's Knight, Knight, Knight. He fired her as soon as the hearing adjourned, telling reporters, quote, On May 21, 2022, Arthur Knight resumed representing himself.
As sure as the Queen is about to have a platinum jubilee, I will prove that I am Arthur Knight. I've studied other trials and cases over the last six months, and I am prepared to be victorious. I cannot lose my cool, be overly assertive, or act in any way that is not in the spirit of the decorum of the court. I still believe that a man who represents himself has a fool for a client, but, in this case, my intention is to transition to a point where a solicitor can pick up where I leave off.
Arthur Knight's extradition hearing is scheduled for June 9th, 2022. Stay tuned. Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, a concerned citizen, with original music by Trevor Howard, a.k.a. Deformer, a.k.a. America's number two Engelbert Humperdinck impersonator. For more information about Swindled, you can visit swindledpodcast.com and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at swindledpodcast.
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