SALT LAKE CITY — On the third day of his heavily publicized rape trial, Nicholas Rossi refused to testify on his own behalf inside a Salt Lake City courtroom as his defense team barely needed an hour to present its case before the jury was sent to deliberate.
Rossi, who claims that his name is Arthur Knight, is accused of raping the then 25-year-old woman in 2008 before allegedly fleeing the country in hopes of avoiding prosecution. Whether he would take the stand in his defense was one of the big questions surrounding the trial.
The day began with the defense team calling retired Orem police officer Yolanda Stewart to the stand, and followed that up with the victim's father, who shared how his daughter had suffered a brain injury in a 2008 scooter accident.
He said he thought the relationship between his daughter and Rossi was moving "too fast," adding that the two were engaged, but his daughter financed her own engagement ring and was financially responsible for it.
The father said he and his daughter often got into arguments about her "life choices," and that the two are currently estranged, although it has nothing to do with Rossi.
During her testimony on Monday, the victim claimed to have told her parents during an argument about having been raped, adding that her father replied that she deserved it. While on the stand, the woman's father said that if his daughter had told him that she had been raped, he didn't hear it.
Immediately after the father's testimony, the defense wrapped its case, leading to closing arguments, which ended just after 1 p.m., and then given to the jury to deliberate.
