Nicholas Rossi, the convicted rapist who faked his own death and fled to Scotland, died Thursday after Utah prison authorities say he chose to “discontinue medical treatment” for an existing condition. He was 38 years old.

Rossi, who also went by the name Nicholas Alahverdian, was serving a 10-year-to-life prison sentence after juries in Utah and Salt Lake counties found him guilty of rape in two separate cases. Prison officials confirmed Friday that Rossi died Thursday evening at a local hospital.

Corrections officials didn’t provide more details about Rossi’s health issues. He used a wheelchair and an oxygen tank during court appearances, and had been arrested in 2021 while being treated for COVID-19 in a Scotland hospital.

After initially claiming Utah authorities had the wrong suspect — and that he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight — Rossi was extradited to the state in 2024 to face rape charges in the two northern Utah counties.

He was convicted in both cases, and sentenced to a five-year-to-life sentence in each case last fall.

In the Utah County case, he was identified as a suspect through a rape kit that had gone untested for a decade.

After he was charged in Utah County, prosecutors in Salt Lake County filed a second rape charge with a different victim, Rossi’s ex-fiancee. In a statement Friday, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill called Rossi “a sexual predator who tried to escape accountability.”

“He was caught and died with the public knowledge of his guilt, and the personal accountability of being in prison,” Gill continued. “The survivors of his heinous acts have the consolation that he died in prison with the knowledge of the crimes he committed.”