Wow. This story is the kind of farce so unbelievable you’d just never buy it as a TV mystery plot. Unfortunately this man and the horrible accusations against him are all too real…

Nicholas Alahverdian is a wanted man. He was convicted for sex crimes in Ohio in 2008 and still has pending fraud charges. He also has a pending charge in Utah after being accused of raping a 21-year-old woman, also in 2008. However, he couldn’t be prosecuted for that crime because, well, he died.

Yes, Alahverdian, who also went by the alias Nicholas Rossi, claimed to the press in 2019 that he had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and in February 2020 there was an obituary claiming he had passed away. Even at the time, his lawyer and Rhode Island state police were doubtful he was really dead.

Cut to nearly two years later, December 2021, when a man was checked into the hospital in Glasgow, Scotland with a severe case of COVID-19. This supposedly British man’s fingerprints matched Alahverdian’s, which were on an Interpol red notice. And so did his tattoos. He was arrested by local law enforcement and has been fighting extradition back to the US for the past year and a half.

Related: Steven Tyler Defends Sexual Assault Of Teen Because He Was Her Legal Guardian!

Authorities determined Alahverdian had faked his own death and fled his charges overseas, adopting the identity of an Irish-born orphan named — and we promise we would not kid about this — Arthur Knight. We know. It’s like a child coming up with a British name. Like, “What do I know about Britain? IDK King Arthur and knights and stuff?”

If you think that’s ridiculous, wait until you see him try to pull off his act on national television! Yes, Dateline covered the story over the weekend, speaking to numerous people who knew Alahverdian aka Rossi aka Knight over the course of his life. The climax was an interview with the man himself, alongside his wife Miranda Knight.

In the sitdown with Andrea Canning, which was filmed last year in Scotland, “Knight” wears an oxygen mask and slumps in a wheelchair, adamant he is disabled. In a terrible accent, he swears — in tears fogging up his glasses:

“I am not Nicholas Alahverdian! I do not know how to make this clearer!”

Then he goes about trying to *prove* he isn’t faking his disability by making a big dramatic moment of standing up, saying:

“We were once a normal family, but thanks to the media our lives have been interrupted. And we’d like privacy and I would like to go back to being a normal husband, but I can’t because I can’t breathe, I can’t walk. People say that’s an act. Let me try and stand up…”

He then stands for a moment, making overt flailing gestures to show how difficult it all is. His wife immediately grabs him and pushes him back into the chair, and — confident he’s proved his point — Knight says:

“Exactly. Exactly.”

Watch the unintentionally hilarious moment, which has since gone viral, for yourselves (below):

Again, we do not want to make light of a story, but it’s just so absurd! We mean, the man stands up to prove he can’t stand up. His accent is terrible. His story is paper-thin. This isn’t a case of a matching name or a similar look — his fingerprints match! This is Nicholas Alahverdian!

Oh, btw, he says he’s being framed — that he was tattooed against his will in the hospital and that his fingerprints were messed with — we assume he means the records, not that someone went in with a scalpel and microscope. In any case, it’s clear he’s having a hard time finding good representation — he’s already fired six lawyers over the course of this extradition process. Maybe he just can’t find one he can fool??

Look, past the ludicrousness of it all, there is a very serious case here. The US has been trying to get “Knight” extradited for over a year now. And the sudden prominence of his case has caused more women to come forward. Since the process began, Utah authorities have sent two additional extradition requests along, one for rape and another for sexual assault.

We just hope everyone continues to see through all the B.S. and these women get their justice.

[Image via Dateline NBC/YouTube.]

The post Watch American Rape Suspect Who Faked His Death Pretend To Be British In RIDICULOUS Viral Interview! appeared first on Perez Hilton.