RAPE suspect Nicholas Rossi has had an assault charge against him dropped.
The brute, 36, who fled to Scotland to avoid US prosecutors, appeared via video link at the Fourth District Court in Utah tonight.
He is in custody at Utah County Jail and he sat in a wheelchair wearing a mask while he was hooked up to an oxygen tank.
Judge Derek Pullan was told that the state is no longer pursuing Rossi over a sexual battery case, but the beast still faces a rape charge.
Prosecutors claim he sexually assaulted a 21-year-old woman on or around September 13, 2008.
When Judge Pullan asked Rossi if he had received the charging document, he said: “Your honour, I am not Nicholas Rossi.”
He added that he had received the document.
Judge Pullan quizzed Rossi whether he had appointed a lawyer or would be requesting a state-provided public defender.
His attorney, Lance Bastian, said that Rossi wishes to retain him but added that they are “still working through the financial side”.
Rossi maintains that he is an Irish orphan called Arthur Knight.
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He was snared at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow after he fell ill with Covid in 2021.
Rossi fought extradition for more than two years but he was finally flown to the states last month.
He will appear again before Judge Pullan next month.
