Mum tells how she was abused and attacked by US fraudster MY RAPE AGONY AT HANDS OF FUGITIVE CONMAN
It was everything from perversion to gaslighting to manipulation. From the moment he walked in, he psychologically wore me down
Fugitive sex attacker nicholas Rossi is at the centre of a new rape accusation.
The conman – who is f ighting extradition from Scotland to the US where he is wanted on rape charges – is now the focus of a pol ice investigation in England.
Mum Michelle Minnar, 41, who met the convicted sex offender on a US dating website, said he attacked her just five weeks after flying into Britain and moving into her Essex home.
Michelle, a food blogger, waved her right to anonymity in a bid to warn other women about the fraudster.
She said: “From the moment he walked in, he psychologically and emotionally wore me down. It was everything from perversion to gaslighting to manipulation. He also forced tea down my throat. He raped me. In the space of five or six days, I was completely broken down.”
Rossi, who also uses the name Nicholas Alahverdian, was arrested in Glasgow last December on an international warrant but has tried to claim he is the victim of mistaken identity and is an Irishman called Arthur Knight.
Michel le ha d a f ive - week relationship with him after he flew from America to the UK in June 2017. He didn’t want to stay at a hotel so arrived at her home and persuaded her to let himhimmovemove ininwithwith her and her two young children.
She saidsaid:: “We met on Okcupid. com. I told him it would be fun to meet but I had children to look after and I’d meet him during the day.
“But he was just so pushy, saying he really wanted to stay with me.
“He cal led himself
NiNicholachola s
AlahAlahverdian. He said that when hihiss stepfather and mum divdivorced, he took on his stepfathfather’s name, which was Rossi. He had an American passport as well. When we met online, he was in the east coast, RhRhode Island.
“Every single boundary ththat I set, he broke. Before I kknew it, he had moved in – I had only agreed to a visit.” Michelle said she was so manipulated by Rossi that he ended up spending £ 33600 of her savings and she lost cocontact with friends.
She said: “Within days he was talking ababout getting married and doing cacalculations about how long it would tatake him to get his residency. “Shortly after he arrived, he said I’ve gogot to give him money and buy him ththe latest iPhone and Apple Watch. I wawas questioning where his money had gogone and he said he’d spent all his money on a first- class ticket on the plane because he had a bad back.
“He said he had now sacrificed his whole life to be with me. After he left, I tallied everything up and over those five weeks I gave him £3600.”
Michelle said things came to crisis point when they went to London on Friday, June 9, 2017, where Rossi – who had no money – was “flashing her cash”.
The following Sunday morning, at her home, she believes she was raped.
She said: “That Sunday morning I got up but, when I tried to get out of the bedroom, he blocked me and said, ‘No, we have to have sex.’
“I said I didn’t want to but he said, ‘Come on, we’ve got to do it.’ I made it clear I didn’t want to have sex but after 10 minutes I got worn down by him and gave in. I thought if I could get this over with, I could get on with my life.
“He just had his way with me and I had an outer-body experience.”
Michelle said that any time she
would try to break off the relationship with Rossi, he would cry “crocodile tears” and said he loved her.
After a previous abusive relationship, she’d received training on how to spot something similar and said Rossi threw up “red flag after red flag”.
She eventually contacted police in July 2017 to ask for support in getting him out of her home. They advised her to change the locks when he was out and pack all his belongings into suitcases and leave them with the police for him to collect.
After being thrown out of her house, Rossi began texting Michelle pathetic messages, including: “I have nowhere to go and haven’t eaten or slept in three days.” And: “I would never in my wildest dreams tell someone to move here then f*** them over like this. You are certifiably insane.”
He also threatened to sue her and left Michelle in a state of fear for months that he would turn up again. She was so shocked to see his picture on news reports, his past convictions and extradition fight that she decided to go to police and made a complaint to Essex Police about the alleged rape.
And she rubbished Rossi’s claims that he is not who police think he is.
She added: “There’s no doubt that’s who he is – just older and fatter.”
She now worries for Bristol-born Miranda, 41, who Rossi married after fleeing Essex. Michelle said: “I know the kind of hell she is in. She’s much further along the road than I was.
“I found it interesting that we’re the same age as he seems to target older women who are vulnerable.”
The revelations destroy Rossi ’s bizarre claim he’s just an innocent Irishman living in Glasgow. Miranda, who now lives with him in a run-down flat in Glasgow’s west end, married him in Bristol on February 22, 2020.
He fled to the UK after authorities in the US started looking for him and realised his apparent death in Rhode Island in February 2020 had been faked.
He was caught while being treated for Covid-19 at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.
A series of hold-ups in his extradition case, including the latest last week at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, prompted a prosecutor to accuse him of “deliberately” delaying proceedings after he claimed he was ill in hospital.
Rossi now has to appear before the same court tomorrow with a medical report – or could potentially face sanctions by the extradition court.
He falsely claimed police in Utah – where he’s wanted over a rape allegation – have the wrong man because he’s an Irish-born orphan who has never
been to America. He uses a fake English accent and claims to be so ill he needs an oxygen tank and wheelchair.
An investigation by the Sunday Mail over the past few months has repeatedly rrevealed Rossi’s lies, sscams and fakes.
Essex Police confirmed ththey are investigating the rarape claim. A spokesman ssaid: “On April 28 2022, we rereceived a historic report oof rape in Chelmsford. Our ininquiries are ongoing.”
Rossi is facing claims hhe raped a 21-year-old in OOrem, Utah, in 2008. The sasame year he was convicted of attacking a student in Dayton, Ohio.
No one answered the door at Rossi’s flat and attempts to contact him by phone or email went unanswered.
Police Scotland said the rape investigation was a matter for Essex Police.