4 | The Mask Slips

This episode contains a victim's testimony about a sexual assault. You're listening to,

“I am not Nicholas, an audible original. Episode 4, The Mask Slips.”

I've learned that in his days as a competitor for the rights of children in care, Nicholas Rossi cultivated his image as a sharp-suited politician in the making. Very charismatic, clearly well-influenced. Let you know he was a lot smarter than you. Condescending as he spoke, he knew his politics, he knew the players and the people.

But there is a side to his life that he kept from the Rhode Island media. 800 miles away in Dayton, Ohio, he had picked up a conviction for sexual assault. My name is Mary Krabinski. I met Nick in 2008. I know from the Rhode Island detective I spoke to that Nicholas Rossi is a registered sex offender for a crime he committed in Ohio in 2008. After some digging around, I find the victim,

and she responds to my request for an interview. He contacted me through my space. So that's how I met him. They were both students at a community college called Sinclair in Dayton, Ohio. Not quite the Harvard education he was so keen to mention back home in Rhode Island, but it runs degree programs and university access courses.

“How long was that sort of the online connection between you on my space?”

It was pretty quick. I would say a week or less. I told him that I had a boyfriend. I was not interested in anything romantic. He told me he was new to the area. He had just moved here from Utah, and that he just wanted to connect and make friends in the Dayton Ohio community. We both agreed to have a lunch together on campus. We each brought a mutual friend, he brought a female friend, I brought a male friend, and we had a lunch together.

So tell me then, that first meeting, talk me through all of that.

It was a very good conversation. He was a very good listener. He was very good at having conversation. He was telling you about local restaurants in the area that he wanted to try. He was a big fan of Indian food. It was a very good conversation. It was a very good conversation. You can hear that at this point Mary, January, liked Nicholas Rossi. It's quite unusual to find someone who's a good listener, especially when you're eating.

They cut some kind of emotional intelligence. You know, it was a nice lunch. It was a nice lunch. And then I had to go to my next class. And then what happened? My class was in the basement.

Nick asked if he could walk me to my class. I said yes, because again, we're in a public college. There's people around us. There's lights. There's cameras. I did not feel unsafe in any way. I had no reason to distrust him at that point. So he walks me to my next class. He takes me down one of the stairwells in the basement. And that's when he starts attacking me.

He pins me up against the wall as very thin at the time. I was very small. So he pinned me up against the wall and he started violently kissing me. I turned my face to the side because I did not want to reciprocate. And he was going under my shirt, reaching towards my breasts. I was like, hey, I need to get going. Can he stop? I need to go to my class.

I had, it wasn't a final exam, but it was a midterm. So, you know, it was pretty important. I mean, I was being attacked. But it was also, I need to get to my class. This is not okay.

I mean, there's never a right time to be assaulted in a stairway.

But I was like, man, I got stuff to do. I made it clear to him. I did not want to be there. I did not want to be there. So I was trying to push him off me and get away. I was begging with him. He did put his hands down my pants. He did not unbutton my pants.

But he had his hands down my pants and inside of me also. He was pleasureing himself the whole time. And he did end up ejaculating on the wall. At that point, I ran upstairs and I ran to my class.

“I mean, how can you date with that just in the aftermath of going to your class and your test and all that?”

At that point, I knew it was somewhere he could not follow me. Because we were doing a test. My teacher lost the door. She was not going to let him in. What a nurse was going through your head. At that point in time, I was kind of in denial. I was just like, what just happened to me. But at the same time, I was like, I got to take this test so I'm going to fail my class.

I did my test. I passed. I got 92. So I was pretty...

“Wow. Good God. Good woman. You. That's fantastic. So what happened then?”

I come out of the classroom and he's there waiting for me. So you come out of the class. You finished your test. You see him. What happens then? He is begging me. You know, I couldn't control myself. You were so beautiful. You know, I'm just I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to come off that way.

And what did you say? Nothing. I am, you know, I'm a very empathetic person, ignoring someone who is pleading. That is very hard for me. I didn't know what to say. I just completely ignored him. He followed me all the way to my math class. You know, begging, you know, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to. You're just so pretty. I wasn't having any of it.

And then who did you first tell? So after my math class, I went straight to the Sinclair Police Department and I felt out of statements saying what had happened to me. And he said, "I don't know if we're going to happen enough to go off of, but we'll talk to him and get his version of the story and then we'll let you know what happens from there."

But it went to court. A Nicholas Rossi was convicted of sexual imposition and for public indecency. And during the trials, his attorney did most of the talking, he didn't say much,

but when he was sentenced, he came up with a cane and a limp that we had never seen him have previously.

And he brought his foster dad and they were trying to talk about next difficult upbringing and that, you know, they should be lenient when they're sentencing him because abuse in the foster care system. I definitely think he was going for emotional manipulation coming in with the cane. The judge did not give him any jail time. I know they gave him a fine. They wanted him to go to some kind of counseling and then they wanted him to register as a sex offender annually for 15 years.

“So, I mean, how did you feel that he actually didn't serve any time for what he did?”

I didn't mind that because he wasn't that I wanted him to suffer. It was, I didn't want him to hurt anybody else. It was very important for me, even when I was, you know, 18, 19 years old, going to court and telling strangers what happened to me, I didn't want him to hurt anybody else. Was that the end of it then for you? No, that was just the beginning of it for me.

A stindingly, he decides to launch a civil kiss against his victim. He ended up suing me because I was ruining his reputation with being on the sex registry. He was no longer allowed to attend Harvard. He said that it was hard for him to get a job. It was hard for him to get dates because nobody wanted to date him because he was on the sex registry. So, he sued me for that and mental distress. I was making $7 an hour at target

to be the victim of a sex case and then the same guy sued you. It was hard. I had to borrow money for my parents. I was floored, but not only was he trying to come after me for the consequences

of his actions, he was asking for an absorbent amount of money. It was a couple million dollars.

My God. Nicholas claimed Mary had admitted on social media that the encounter was consensual. It was allegedly me drunk talking about how I cheated on my boyfriend with him. Nicholas claimed that Mary had written this on her "my space" page and later taken a dime, but he just so happened to have printed off a copy before it was deleted. The dead of the blog post on the printote was May 16, 2008, and Monday.

And that the paper evidence that he presented to the court was Elas, the only evidence there was. This is the lawyer Mary had to hire to defend her against Nicholas. Ron Cousar. He spotted an obvious flaw in Nicholas's story, a bite the printite. Well, it so happens that the dates and the day of the week were not the same. May such and such was actually on a Friday, not a Monday. It would be impossible for a computer

to print out the wrong day. Only a human can make that kind of basic ever. It was a very clumsy

“job of faking it and it was immediately evident to the court that that's what had occurred.”

This kind of lawsuit is the kind of lawsuit that we lawyers and judges here associate with cranks. You know, he organized a press conference to announce to the world this effort he was making in the court system and no one attended any of his press conferences. He also had a blog on that blog.

or a video managed in such a way that you couldn't see who was or wasn't attending the press conference.

“Ron thought Nicholas Rossi's attempt to sue Mary was an abuse of the court system.”

I also filed a motion to reimbursed my client for the attorney fees that she had paid me. Well, the judge found that his claim was indeed frivolous and made him pay the attorney fees. You know, my name happens to be on a registry because of a false allegation. This is Nicholas Rossi complaining to the police years later when they tried to make his neighbors aware of the fact he was a convicted sex offender.

You seem to have a huge interest in instilling this fear that I'm this awful horrible person. I found on the internet his participation in a website called a voice for men.

“That website was evidently created by some grumpy men who felt that the court system was”

biased in favor of women in divorce cases and in cases where allegations of a sexual nature were made

against men. There are certain men who perceive that women will just always be believed

rightly or wrongly and that this is just unfair. Pictures of Mary and her baby daughter suddenly appear on the voice for men website. She doesn't know if Nick was responsible for putting them in there, but she remembers the impact. It was heartbreaking for me because, you know, like, my daughter, like, she's innocent in this. Like, she didn't have anything to do with it. You know, my parents, they

had nothing to do with it. My parents have only been supportive. It was even harder to see Nick

paint himself as the victim, though. That was the really heartbreaking part was,

he does all this horrible stuff to me and then he goes to people acting like, he's the victim. I would later write to Rossi to put this accusation to him. Guess what? He wasn't dead, but I didn't get a reply. I don't know if he denies his actions or he likes the pity or attention. It's like really dark to assault somebody and then try to turn the tables on them. You know, there were times where I did think Nick would come up with something and then

you'd have tried to put me in jail. While Mary is telling me about this harassment from Nicolas, it's beginning to sound very familiar. Since Arthur knew we couldn't pay him for an interview, things had turned nasty. I didn't expect this to happen. It just really evolved from a simple text that I sent Arthur around lunchtime. And I just asked him if he could take a picture of his Irish driving license and send it to me. Within a few minutes, I got a call from him

that I took and I'm sort of regretting that I did because from the moment I picked up, he was not happy. He got angrier and angrier as a phone call, progressed. He wasn't happy that I was asking to see his Irish driving license. He just got progressively more angry, shouting. He then he said that he had a few surprises from me. I wish to God I had a recording of that. I really do. What I didn't have his consent to record. What I clearly remember, the phone call, it was just,

it was a hall, new level of abuse that I was not getting from him. It was horrendous. And then he just continued shouting, shouting. And every time I tried to say something, he shouted me down and then he hung up. So minutes later, less than five minutes later, I get three texts. And the texts are, I'm sorry. And then immediately I get another text and we can work together,

“but you need to be transparent with me or you'll get nothing. And then next text straight away,”

I will phone you later. And oh boy, has he phoned me later. So he has phoned me and I didn't pick up. But he has phoned me four times inside an hour and a half. What did he say again? I have a few surprises for you that you don't just know about. And he said it in such a menacing tone. I think, you know, he's led his garden and he just doesn't think that we're examining it as

uneasy. The other thing that bothers me is the way that Arthur Knight seems to raffle in all the media attention. His landlord had told me a story about an occasion when Arthur asked him to come to his flat to film an interview or bite his kiss. I'm afraid I was talking to the landlord in a busy

“cafe, but it's worth listening to what he has to say. Arthur, I think he's a director on the”

director's chair. Oh, he was calling the shots. He was calling the shots. Any shots that didn't match up to his expectation, he would kill the outrage. So he was directing his own show, right? Yes, it's struck me as very odd, but in many ways, Arthur Knight's behavior sounded very similar to what lawyer Ron Koosar told me about Nicholas Rossi, right down to the love of calling press conferences.

I'm at Arthur's second press conference in this many days. It's poorly attended, but for me,

it's been worth showing up because it turns out the American lawyer Arthur said he instructed his real. My name is Craig Johnson. I run a law practice in Provo, Utah. A former state prosecutor from Utah, no less, has flew in in forward the press conference. Utah is the state which is charged Nicholas Rossi with rape. I was a prosecutor for 15 years before doing this. What is more, he's contradicting my rising suspicion that Arthur Knight might really be US fugitive,

Nicholas Rossi. He is not Nicholas Rossi or any of his aliases. They have the wrong person.

This is a piece of mistaken identity. I'm a clear, he is not Nicholas Rossi. He's never been

to Oram, Utah, where the alleged rape happened. He's never been to Utah. He's never been to the United States, and we frankly demand more proof before going forward with these various charges. We're in a very stylish luxury boutique hotel in the heart of Glasgow, and when my producer Helen and I turn up, Nicholas is doing an entry for a US TV news network. When that's done, it's just me, Helen, and a journalist from the Times of London. The rest of the press pack are missing some

amazing claims coming from Arthur's Utah lawyer. So you have no doubt whatsoever that the man sitting here in front of us is Arthur Knight and not Nicholas Rossi or Nicholas Ali. That's correct.

“That's how I feel and if there was real proof, I think they didn't show that.”

Arthur interrupts his lawyer. He doesn't like that I am questioning his identity. No, I have to ask a question, though. It's a fair question. You want to make money off of my story. I'm not doing not actually a reporter, and I'm doing it with another person that's grainy. I'm not answering questions, and I'm trying to answer every question and they're asking me, Mr. Rossi. My producer Helen tries to come, Arthur Dine. I am not Mr. Rossi, help that you.

Mr. Knight. I'm Diney. Mr. Knight. He has a go at her, and then he turns back to me. You are making money. You are not doing this for news-gabbing purposes. You are a liar. Arthur, she's talking to me right now, okay? Please take a break. Arthur, I'm going to end this.

I'm going to walk away if you don't let me answer their questions. They are being professionals. We need to do the same place. I know you're upset. Please let me have a conversation with them. The press conference returns to some kind of normality, and then it starts to wind up. Thank you very much. I'm sorry to cut the short. I can leave my letter card with you and you can follow up and feel a little bit of questions.

So we're in this very large stylish modern front rim of this absolutely gorgeous hotel in Glasgow. And there's only three of us. There are three journalists. Arthur has his mask on, of course.

And I see something I've never noticed before.

“You must record this. I'm actually trying to believe this. This is listen to me.”

Helen and I risk to call our executive producer. I'm in this, and I never noticed this before, but Arthur liked as a very prominent space between his upload to Frontith, okay? I've just find a picture of Nicholas Rossi on her wing.

I've got the photograph. I mean, I couldn't take my lines on this gap.

“I know I strongly suspect that Arthur Knight is, in fact, Nicholas Rossi. All my efforts from”

Neuon have to be a bite proving this 100%. My producer and I decide we've got to get another

interview with Arthur. So I can confront him about being Nicholas Rossi, and I'm going to say to him,

“Arthur, do you have a gap between your two front teeth?”

I put the allegations made in this episode to Nicholas Rossi in a letter. He didn't reply.

If you've been affected by sexual assault, please visit the I am not Nicholas Show page on the audible website where you will find links to organizations offering advice and support.