Wife of Nicholas Rossi claims cops have the wrong man

The wife of a fugitive conman wanted for rape in the US after faking his own death claims police have got the wrong man.

Miranda Knight, 41, told of her shock after her husband Nicholas Rossi was arrested as he recovered from Covid in Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth hospital in December.

Despite evidence the man she knows as Arthur Knight Brown is convicted sex offender and serial conman Rossi, Miranda says she is standing by him.

Breaking her silence, she said: “It’s a living hell when you’re met with your husband having to go into intensive care and on to a ventilator and have consultants say to you, ‘This is really the only hope for him’.

“To have gone through that for three months then to be met with this arrest that happened in hospital has been just unbelievable and just a shock to the system.

“I’m here with Arthur. I know my husband, I love my husband and he’s always been the perfect gentleman to me and he’s always wanted the best for me.

“I know what I’ve read about this other person. The claims and what he’s done is black and white to who I’m married to.

“When you live with someone and are married to them you know everything about them.

“You can’t change a person and someone who has done sexual assaults or rapes, which I’ve read about this person – that person would just continue.

“There’s absolutely nothing I’ve ever seen which shows Arthur isn’t the loving husband he’s always been. I honestly believe you can’t hide that type of personality if you have those tendencies.”

She dismissed court claims her husband, 34, is a fugitive with multiple identities who faked his own death to avoid rape and fraud charges in the US.

Ex-pal Brian Coogan last week identified Rossi from a scar above his right eye and tattoos of a barcode and a bird’s wing on his arms.

Rossi is facing claims he raped a 21-year-old in Orem, Utah, in 2008. He is also said to have attacked women in Rhode Island, Ohio and Massachusetts.

The FBI also had a warrant for his arrest on charges of ­defrauding his foster dad, taking out credit cards in his name and running up debts of more than £146,000.

Rossi, who is using a wheelchair and claiming he is ill, has already denied his identity at an earlier court hearing in Edinburgh.

He is going back to court where evidence from US prosecutors that Rossi and Knight Brown are the same man is expected to be led.

Last month we revealed Rossi, who called himself a PR executive, had fled the US and was living in Bristol when he scammed $40,000 from Canadian TV star Nafsika Antypas. She believed he was Irish and living in Ireland. A month before Rossi married Miranda in March 2020, tributes claimed he had died of cancer – with fake obituaries saying his ashes were scattered at sea.

The couple moved to Glasgow’s west end last May where Rossi, who locals said had an English accent, claimed he had a job at Glasgow University. He began using the surname Knight-Brown and the first name Arthur.

Miranda said he changed his name as he suffered night terrors about bullying over his name and was advised by a psychiatrist to use his middle name Arthur and Miranda’s surname of Knight.

She also refuses to believe he is American and said he is Irish, saying: “The Irish is still there. You do tend to take on accents where you live. You end up, I believe, with a hybrid accent.”

Miranda claimed she met him several years ago before he moved into the house she owns in her home city of Bristol.

A marriage certificate seen by the Sunday Mail shows they wed on March 22 at a local church.

Sources said Nicholas had no friends or family at the service.The name and occupation of his dad is blank on the certificate.

Rossi is due to appear in court in Edinburgh in April for an extradition hearing.