SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Rhode Island man accused of faking his death and fleeing the United States to evade rape charges was found guilty Wednesday of sexually assaulting a former girlfriend in his first of two Utah trials.

A jury in Salt Lake County found Nicholas Rossi guilty of a 2008 rape after a three-day trial in which his accuser and her parents took the stand. The verdict came hours after Rossi, 38, declined to testify on his own behalf. He will be sentenced in the case on Oct. 20 and is set to stand trial in September for another rape charge in Utah County.

First-degree felony rape carries a punishment in Utah of five years to life in prison, said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill.

“We are grateful to the survivor in this case for her willingness to come forward, years after this attack took place,” Gill said in a statement Wednesday night. “We appreciate her patience as we worked to bring the defendant back to Salt Lake County so that this trial could take place and she could get justice. It took courage and bravery to take the stand and confront her attacker to hold him accountable.”

Utah authorities began searching for Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, when he was identified through a decade-old DNA rape kit in 2018. He was among thousands of rape suspects identified and later charged when the state made a push to clear its rape kit backlog.

Months after he was charged in Utah County, an online obituary claimed Rossi had died on Feb. 29, 2020, of late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma. But police in his home state of Rhode Island, along with his former lawyer and a former foster family, cast doubt on whether he was dead. He was arrested in Scotland the following year while receiving treatment for COVID-19 after hospital staff in Glasgow recognized his distinctive tattoos from an Interpol notice.

Rossi was extradited to Utah in January 2024 while insisting he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who was being framed. Investigators say they identified at least a dozen aliases Rossi used over the years to evade capture.

He appeared in court this week in a wheelchair, wearing a suit and tie and using an oxygen tank.

Throughout the trial, prosecutors painted a picture of an intelligent man who used his charm to take advantage of a vulnerable young woman. She was living with her parents and recovering from a traumatic brain injury when she responded to a personal ad Rossi posted on Craigslist. They began dating and were engaged within about two weeks.

On Monday, the woman described being asked to pay for their dates, cover Rossi’s car repairs, lend him $1,000 so he wouldn’t be evicted from his apartment and take on debt to buy their engagement rings. He grew hostile soon after their engagement and raped her in his bedroom one night after she drove him home, she testified.

The woman said dismissive comments from her parents convinced her not to go to the police at the time. She came forward a decade later after she saw him in the news and learned he was accused of another rape from the same year.

Rossi’s lawyers sought to convince the jury that his accuser built up years of resentment after he made her foot the bill for everything in their monthlong relationship. They argued she accused him of rape to get back at him years later when he was getting media attention.

Attorneys for Rossi did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment after the verdict Wednesday night.

Rossi’s accuser in the Utah County case did, however, go to the police at the time. She took the stand Tuesday to testify about her own experiences with Rossi — though he will not stand trial for that rape charge until next month.

Rossi is accused of attacking the second woman, another former girlfriend, at his apartment in Orem in September 2008 after she came over to collect money she said he stole from her to buy a computer. When police initially interviewed Rossi, he claimed she had raped him and threatened to have him killed.

Rossi grew up in foster homes in Rhode Island and had returned there before allegedly faking his death. He was previously wanted in the state for failing to register as a sex offender. The FBI has said he also faces fraud charges in Ohio, where he was convicted of sex-related charges in 2008.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A random shooting outside a Target store in Texas began when a gunman killed an employee collecting shopping carts then a man and his 4-year-old granddaughter, sparking a chaotic hour of stolen cars and crashes that ended with him arrested naked holding a Bible, police said Tuesday.

Ethan Nieneker, 32, is charged with two counts of capital murder and one count of murder over Monday’s shooting in Austin. Court records show a series of past arrests for domestic violence and assault.

“What happened yesterday was an unprovoked and deliberate attack, a deliberate act of violence,” Police Chief Lisa Davis said at a news conference. “Innocent lives were taken in broad daylight, in a place where people should feel safe to run their everyday errands and to live their everyday lives.”

The police chief said that although Nieneker had a history of mental health issues, she was unaware of any specific diagnosis. Sgt. Nathan Sexton said the firearm Nieneker used in the attacks was acquired through family.

After shooting the Target employee, Nieneker shot the grandfather as he sat in the driver’s seat of his sport utility vehicle, then fatally shot the little girl in the back seat before stealing the vehicle and driving away fast, police said.

“It was a completely random choosing of the victims,” Sexton said.

Police said the Target employee, Hector Leopoldo Martinez Machuca, 24, was taken to a hospital where he died. Adam Chow, 65, and his granddaughter were pronounced dead at the scene while Chow’s wife sustained minor injuries. The name of the child was not released.

Over the next hour, Nieneker tried to steal a water truck at a construction site, caused multiple vehicle crashes, wrecked Chow’s vehicle and then stole a Volkswagen he’d crashed into, police said. He also tried to break into a Waymo self-driving vehicle, threw a brick through the home of an acquaintance and walked naked through a backyard.

Officers found Nieneker walking naked on a street after he ditched his clothes in a portable toilet, police said. He was holding a Bible and was subdued with a Taser when he would not comply with demands.

“He said that he was Jesus,” Sexton said.

Police received multiple 911 calls as the suspect made his way across the city.

Chris Ferran said he was driving on a highway when he saw an SUV fly past him, then smash into two vehicles and keep going. “I’m not letting anybody get away with this, so I chased him down and called 911,” he said.

Ferran watched as the driver pulled into a construction site, got out of the SUV and ripped a worker out of a water truck. Ferran said the SUV’s driver, who was clad in what looked like swim trunks and a Hawaiian shirt, was in the truck for a while. So Ferran started shooting a video.

But when the man got out of the water truck, Ferran realized he had a gun.

“As soon as I saw that, I threw the phone down and I reversed and I was trying to get us out of there,” said Ferran, who had his two daughters with him.

Jail records did not list an attorney for Nieneker on Tuesday.

Online court records show Nieneker was arrested several times in recent years in both Travis County, which includes Austin, and neighboring Williamson County.

His Travis County arrests include misdemeanors for criminal mischief and driving while intoxicated, and three arrests on felony domestic violence charges. He was convicted of a charge of assault causing bodily injury family violence in 2016 and briefly sentenced to jail.

Another charge within days of the 2016 episode was dismissed. It was not immediately clear if those two charges were related. Another charge of felony assault on a family or household member in 2019 was dismissed three years later when prosecutors could not locate the victim.

Williamson County records show repeated run-ins with law enforcement, including two cases of misdemeanor family violence in 2015 that were later dismissed. He was also convicted of possession of marijuana in 2012 and entered a no contest plea to a charge of criminal mischief in 2016.

Monday’s shooting came as back-to-school shopping was in full swing ahead of the upcoming academic year. It also comes about two weeks after an attack at a Walmart in Michigan in which a man stabbed 11 people. The suspect has been charged with terrorism and multiple counts of attempted murder.

NEW YORK (AP) — Transcripts of grand jury testimony that led to sex trafficking charges against Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime confidante Ghislaine Maxwell shouldn’t be released, a judge ruled Monday in a stinging decision suggesting the Trump administration’s real motive for wanting them unsealed was to fool the public with an “illusion” of transparency.

U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said in a written decision that federal law almost never allows for the release of grand jury materials and that making the documents public casually was a bad idea.

The judge also belittled the Justice Department’s argument that releasing grand jury materials might reveal new information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes, calling that premise “demonstrably false.”

The decision was a blow to President Donald Trump, who had called for the release of transcripts as he seeks to dispel rumors and quell criticism about his long ago involvement with Epstein, who killed himself in jail in 2019. Trump campaigned on a promise to release files related to Epstein, but was met with criticism — including from many of his own supporters — when the small number of records released by his Justice Department lacked any real bombshells.

Transcripts reveal ‘next to nothing new,’ judge says

In his ruling, Engelmayer wrote that after privately reviewing the grand jury transcripts, anyone familiar with the evidence from Maxwell’s 2021 sex trafficking trial would “learn next to nothing new” and “would come away feeling disappointed and misled.”

“The materials do not identify any person other than Epstein and Maxwell as having had sexual contact with a minor. They do not discuss or identify any client of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s. They do not reveal any heretofore unknown means or methods of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s crimes,” Engelmayer said.

He said the materials also don’t reveal new locations where crimes occurred, new sources of Maxwell and Epstein’s wealth, the circumstances of Epstein’s death or the path of the government investigation.

The best argument to release the transcripts might be that “doing so would expose as disingenuous the Government’s public explanations for moving to unseal,” Engelmayer wrote.

“A member of the public, appreciating that the Maxwell grand jury materials do not contribute anything to public knowledge, might conclude that the Government’s motion for their unsealing was aimed not at ‘transparency’ but at diversion — aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such,” he said.

Another federal judge is weighing whether to release transcripts from the separate grand jury proceeding that led to Epstein’s indictment.

Florida lawyer Brad Edwards, who has represented nearly two dozen Epstein accusers, said he didn’t disagree with the ruling and most wanted to protect victims. “The grand jury materials contain very little in the way of evidentiary value anyway,” he said.

Maxwell, Epstein’s ex-girlfriend, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for helping Epstein sexually abuse several underage girls. Her lawyer, Bobbi Sternheim, declined comment. The Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Decision comes amid a renewed fervor over Epstein case

The Epstein saga has again become a national flashpoint years after Epstein served jail time and registered as a sex offender after pleading guilty to Florida prostitution offenses in a 2008 deal that let him avoid federal charges then.

President Donald Trump raised questions about Epstein’s death, and Trump allies stoked conspiracy theories that dark secrets were covered up to protect powerful people. Some of those allies got powerful positions in Trump’s Justice Department and promised to pull back the curtain on the Epstein investigation — but then announced this summer nothing more would be released and a long-rumored Epstein “client list” doesn’t exist.

The about-face amplified the clamor for transparency. After trying unsuccessfully to change the subject and denigrating his own supporters for not moving on, Trump told Attorney General Pam Bondi to ask courts to unseal the grand jury transcripts.

With pressure mounting in recent weeks, the Justice Department’s second-in-command, Todd Blanche, recently interviewed Maxwell over two days in an effort to show that the Trump administration was serious about looking for any additional evidence of misconduct.

Maxwell was moved from a federal prison in Florida to a prison camp in Texas after speaking with Blanche.

The Republican-led House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the Justice Department for Epstein-related files and has moved to interview former President Bill Clinton, who was among a number of luminaries once acquainted with Epstein.

The decision about the grand jury transcripts in Maxwell’s case doesn’t affect thousands of other pages the government possesses but has declined to release. The Justice Department has said much of the material was court-sealed to protect victims and little of it would’ve come out if Epstein had gone to trial.

A federal judge in Florida declined to release grand jury documents from an investigation there in 2005 and 2007.

Maxwell, who’s appealing her conviction, opposed unsealing the documents.