Utah
Man extradited from Scotland continues to deny identity in case
A man accused of faking his own death and fleeing the U.S. to avoid rape charges continued to deny he is the man identified in the case during an online court appearance from jail Tuesday.
Nicholas Rossi, 36, made the appearance after missing two January court dates with no explanation. After Utah 4th District Judge Derek Pullan in Provo cleared jail officials to use reasonable force to get him to show, Rossi made his initial appearance seated behind a green gas tank and wearing an oxygen mask.
Pullan asked Rossi if he had received the charging document accusing him of raping a 21-year-old woman in Orem, Utah, in 2008.
“I’m not Nicholas Rossi, for the record,” he responded in a rasping voice with a British accent. “But I have received the document.”
Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, has used several aliases and said he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who never set foot on American soil. He did not elaborate on his identity Tuesday, and Pullan didn’t ask before setting his next court appearance for March 5.
Rossi made similar claims in a court hearing in January. He was extradited to the U.S. from Scotland earlier that month.
Rossi was not identified as a suspect in the Orem rape for about a decade due to a backlog of DNA test kits at the Utah State Crime Lab. He also faces a felony charge in Salt Lake County, where prosecutors allege he raped a 26-year-old former girlfriend after an argument, also in 2008.
He faces multiple other complaints against him in Rhode Island and Ohio for alleged domestic violence, sexual abuse and fraud.
The American fugitive grew up in foster homes in Rhode Island and had returned to the state before allegedly faking his death and fleeing the country. An obituary published online claimed Rossi died Feb. 29, 2020, of late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Authorities and his former foster family doubted his death.
Rossi was arrested in Scotland in 2021 after being recognized at a Glasgow hospital during treatment for COVID-19. He lost an extradition appeal in the country in December.
Mississippi
Woman sues poultry plant where her 16-year-old son died while working
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The mother of a 16-year-old who died in a workplace accident at a Mississippi poultry factory is suing the companies that hired and employed him, accusing them of failing to follow safety standards that could have prevented his death.
In court papers filed at the Forest County Circuit Court last week, attorneys for Edilma Perez Ramirez said Mar-Jac Poultry skirted safety protections, leading to the death of her son Duvan Perez. The lawsuit follows a January report by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration that declared numerous safety violations related to the death of the teenager, who immigrated to Mississippi from Guatemala years ago.
“Mar-Jac and its affiliates have a long and sordid history of willful disregard for worker safety,” the lawsuit reads.
A Mar-Jac spokesperson did not respond to email and phone messages Tuesday. In previous statements, the company has said it relied on a staffing agency to hire workers and didn’t know Duvan was underage. Federal labor law bans the hiring of minors in several hazardous work sites, including slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants.
In July, Duvan became the third worker to die in less than three years at the Hattiesburg, Mississippi, plant owned by Mar-Jac, a Georgia-based poultry production company.
In 2020, 33-year-old Joel Velasco Toto died after a co-worker “inserted an air-compression hose into his rectum,” the lawsuit says. In 2021, 48-year-old Bobby Butler died after becoming entangled in a machine he was cleaning.
Workplace safety officials launched an investigation into Duvan’s death in July. OSHA investigators found that he was killed while performing a deep clean of a machine in the plant’s deboning area. He became caught in a still-energized machine’s rotating shaft and was pulled in, officials said.
The lawsuit says that Mar-Jac allowed Duvan to clean the equipment despite his age and alleged improper training.
Attorneys for Perez Ramirez also sued Onin Staffing, an Alabama-based company that does business in Mississippi. The staffing agency assigned Duvan to work at the plant even though it knew he was a minor, the lawsuit says. After Duvan’s death, Onin filed a notice with the state to avoid paying worker’s compensation, the lawsuit claims.
Onin did not respond to emailed questions Tuesday.
Federal investigators said that plant managers should have ensured that workers disconnected the machine’s power and followed steps to prevent the machine from unintentionally starting up again during the cleaning. They cited Mar-Jac for workplace violations and proposed over $200,000 in penalties.
OSHA had issued at least eight citations for safety violations at the plant before Duvan’s death, the lawsuit says. These include the deaths of Toto and Butler, three amputations and a hospitalization due to a fall.
After the accident, Labor Department officials said Duvan’s death offered a reminder that children remain vulnerable to exploitation in the U.S. workplace.
Wisconsin
16-year-old suspect in Juneteenth shooting sent to adult court
MILWAUKEE (AP) — A judge Tuesday waived to adult court a 16-year-old boy charged in a shooting after a Juneteenth celebration last year that left six people wounded.
Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Kristela Cervera granted prosecutors’ request to try the teen as an adult.
Cervera said the seriousness of the teen’s alleged offenses outweighed mitigating factors presented by his defense.
Cervera set his bail at $250,000.
When he was first charged as a 15-year-old, the youth faced four counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety as a party to a crime, two counts of first-degree reckless injury as a party to a crime, and one count each of possession of a firearm by adjudicated delinquent, possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18, disorderly conduct and violation of nonsecure custody order.
The June 19 shooting outside a church injured two males ages 17 and 19 and four girls or women ranging in age from 14 to 18 years old. All six shooting victims survived.
Investigators believe the shooting stemmed from a fight between young women outside the church, police said.
Man extradited from Scotland continues to deny identity in case
A man accused of faking his own death and fleeing the U.S. to avoid rape charges continued to deny he is the man identified in the case during an online court appearance from jail Tuesday.
Nicholas Rossi, 36, made the appearance after missing two January court dates with no explanation. After Utah 4th District Judge Derek Pullan in Provo cleared jail officials to use reasonable force to get him to show, Rossi made his initial appearance seated behind a green gas tank and wearing an oxygen mask.
Pullan asked Rossi if he had received the charging document accusing him of raping a 21-year-old woman in Orem, Utah, in 2008.
“I’m not Nicholas Rossi, for the record,” he responded in a rasping voice with a British accent. “But I have received the document.”
Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, has used several aliases and said he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who never set foot on American soil. He did not elaborate on his identity Tuesday, and Pullan didn’t ask before setting his next court appearance for March 5.
Rossi made similar claims in a court hearing in January. He was extradited to the U.S. from Scotland earlier that month.
Rossi was not identified as a suspect in the Orem rape for about a decade due to a backlog of DNA test kits at the Utah State Crime Lab. He also faces a felony charge in Salt Lake County, where prosecutors allege he raped a 26-year-old former girlfriend after an argument, also in 2008.
He faces multiple other complaints against him in Rhode Island and Ohio for alleged domestic violence, sexual abuse and fraud.
The American fugitive grew up in foster homes in Rhode Island and had returned to the state before allegedly faking his death and fleeing the country. An obituary published online claimed Rossi died Feb. 29, 2020, of late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Authorities and his former foster family doubted his death.
Rossi was arrested in Scotland in 2021 after being recognized at a Glasgow hospital during treatment for COVID-19. He lost an extradition appeal in the country in December.
Mississippi
Woman sues poultry plant where her 16-year-old son died while working
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The mother of a 16-year-old who died in a workplace accident at a Mississippi poultry factory is suing the companies that hired and employed him, accusing them of failing to follow safety standards that could have prevented his death.
In court papers filed at the Forest County Circuit Court last week, attorneys for Edilma Perez Ramirez said Mar-Jac Poultry skirted safety protections, leading to the death of her son Duvan Perez. The lawsuit follows a January report by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration that declared numerous safety violations related to the death of the teenager, who immigrated to Mississippi from Guatemala years ago.
“Mar-Jac and its affiliates have a long and sordid history of willful disregard for worker safety,” the lawsuit reads.
A Mar-Jac spokesperson did not respond to email and phone messages Tuesday. In previous statements, the company has said it relied on a staffing agency to hire workers and didn’t know Duvan was underage. Federal labor law bans the hiring of minors in several hazardous work sites, including slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants.
In July, Duvan became the third worker to die in less than three years at the Hattiesburg, Mississippi, plant owned by Mar-Jac, a Georgia-based poultry production company.
In 2020, 33-year-old Joel Velasco Toto died after a co-worker “inserted an air-compression hose into his rectum,” the lawsuit says. In 2021, 48-year-old Bobby Butler died after becoming entangled in a machine he was cleaning.
Workplace safety officials launched an investigation into Duvan’s death in July. OSHA investigators found that he was killed while performing a deep clean of a machine in the plant’s deboning area. He became caught in a still-energized machine’s rotating shaft and was pulled in, officials said.
The lawsuit says that Mar-Jac allowed Duvan to clean the equipment despite his age and alleged improper training.
Attorneys for Perez Ramirez also sued Onin Staffing, an Alabama-based company that does business in Mississippi. The staffing agency assigned Duvan to work at the plant even though it knew he was a minor, the lawsuit says. After Duvan’s death, Onin filed a notice with the state to avoid paying worker’s compensation, the lawsuit claims.
Onin did not respond to emailed questions Tuesday.
Federal investigators said that plant managers should have ensured that workers disconnected the machine’s power and followed steps to prevent the machine from unintentionally starting up again during the cleaning. They cited Mar-Jac for workplace violations and proposed over $200,000 in penalties.
OSHA had issued at least eight citations for safety violations at the plant before Duvan’s death, the lawsuit says. These include the deaths of Toto and Butler, three amputations and a hospitalization due to a fall.
After the accident, Labor Department officials said Duvan’s death offered a reminder that children remain vulnerable to exploitation in the U.S. workplace.
Wisconsin
16-year-old suspect in Juneteenth shooting sent to adult court
MILWAUKEE (AP) — A judge Tuesday waived to adult court a 16-year-old boy charged in a shooting after a Juneteenth celebration last year that left six people wounded.
Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Kristela Cervera granted prosecutors’ request to try the teen as an adult.
Cervera said the seriousness of the teen’s alleged offenses outweighed mitigating factors presented by his defense.
Cervera set his bail at $250,000.
When he was first charged as a 15-year-old, the youth faced four counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety as a party to a crime, two counts of first-degree reckless injury as a party to a crime, and one count each of possession of a firearm by adjudicated delinquent, possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18, disorderly conduct and violation of nonsecure custody order.
The June 19 shooting outside a church injured two males ages 17 and 19 and four girls or women ranging in age from 14 to 18 years old. All six shooting victims survived.
Investigators believe the shooting stemmed from a fight between young women outside the church, police said.
