Journalist behind new Amazon documentary wants to ask Nicholas Rossi 'why'?
Nicholas Rossi was convicted of rape against two women in the US
A journalist behind a best-selling podcast about fraudster and convicted rapist Nicholas Rossi has told how she would "love to have a conversation” with the conman to ask "why"?
Jane MacSorley, the producer of a new two-part Scottish documentary to be screened on Amazon Prime from tomorrow gave evidence at Rossi's second trial in the US, when he was found guilty of raping a second woman in 2008.
Rossi, who was wanted by the FBI and who went by a number of different aliases, tried to dodge extradition to the US after waking up from a coma in a Glasgow hospital during the Covid pandemic.
The new documentary, Nicholas Rossi: Predator on Trial, created by Glasgow-based Firecrest, features interviews with women who were assaulted by Mr Rossi, including his former wife, Kathryn. It also includes an audio interview with a woman known only as Melissa, who was the victim of the second trial, as well as Rossi’s stepfather.
Journalist Ms MacSorley, who is also host of a nine-part Audible podcast on the case, I Am Not Nicholas, followed the story closely from Rossi’s early hearings in Edinburgh Sheriff Court.
She said: “It was a story like no other and it was on my doorstep. You hear about this kind of thing maybe in the US, but you just don't get these stories here.”
Rossi was identified when he was admitted to Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow in 2021 due to his distinctive tattoos. However, he claimed he was not Nicholas Rossi and instead insisted he was an Irish orphan called Arthur Knight.
He continued to insist he was Arthur Knight until his extradition in 2024, adopting an Anglo-Irish accent at all times.
Rossi was convicted of rape of two women in separate trials in the US last year and is currently serving a prison sentence.
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Edinburgh-based Ms MacSorley said she has not spoken to Rossi, who she had previously interviewed for her podcast when he was living in Scotland, even visiting his Glasgow flat, where she had dinner with him and his new British wife, Miranda - since he was extradited to the US.
She said: “I've not talked to him since he was sent back. I’d love to have a conversation with him. I’d love to ask him ‘why’?”
The story of her testifying in court will be told in bonus episodes of her podcast later this year.
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She said: “I never, for the life of me, when I first started looking into the story, thought that I would ever be a witness in his in his rape trial. It was just unreal and it was a very nerve wracking experience. I testified. I took the stand in the second trial, and I helped bring him down.
She said the fugitive - who identified himself as Nicholas Rossi and began speaking in an American accent again after he was extradited - passed her a note via his attorney as the trial was starting.
“He did a double take and then he waved. I waved back. The next thing, his attorney comes over to me before the trial starts and he said, ‘I've got a message from Arthur’. He said he said he wanted to apologise for not responding to my email.”