Nick Alahverdian has a new neighbor — see who bought a nearby castle in Scotland
On the same day last week that Rhode Island fugitive Nicholas Alahverdian was refusing to get into a prison van to attend his extradition hearing in Scotland, the former Utah prosecutor who launched the effort to have him returned was roaming the grounds of his new, nearby castle.
As if the Alahverdian story could get any more bizarre.
Alahverdian is the onetime child welfare advocate who in fanciful fashion faked his death in 2020 to avoid fraud and rape allegations. He fled overseas and cultivated the disguise of an eccentric academic who hit the pubs of Glasgow dressed in three-piece suits and bowler hats. That is until COVID, and then Interpol, caught up to him in the hospital in December 2021.
Rather than keep his head down and remain quiet, as some extradition experts say would have served him best, the 35-year-old narcissist took the offensive, cried mistaken identity and began publicly attacking David Leavitt, the Utah prosecutor who sought his arrest for a 2008 rape.
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Alahverdian even partnered last year with Leavitt’s political opponents, working to defeat Leavitt in his reelection bid; Alahverdian spread wild accusations against him from a website he created while out on bail in his Glasgow flat.
Leavitt might be out of office now, but probably not out of Alahverdian’s hair.
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How did the Leavitts come to own Knockderry Castle?
In February, Leavitt and his wife, Chelom, bought Knockderry Castle, a 170-year-old gray citadel overlooking a miles-long loch, about 90 miles from where Alahverdian sits in solitary confinement in an Edinburgh prison awaiting his fate.
Leavitt says the purchase of Knockderry Castle is the culmination of a decade-old dream for him and for Chelom, an assistant professor at Brigham Young University who teaches couples' relationships.
“We just like restoring old places, and castles are magical,” Leavitt said the other day after recently returning to Utah from a visit to his castle on the west coast of Scotland.
The Leavitts have remodeled a half-dozen houses or properties either for themselves or for investment purposes, but nothing on this scale, he said.
“So, it's not our first baseball game, but it's an entirely new league.”
The Leavitts purchased the castle with the permission of a bankruptcy court for 1,150,000 English pounds, or about $1.4 million.
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Did Alahverdian's presence in Scotland influence their purchase?
The decision to buy it didn’t come easily, as the couple shares in a blog they’ve created titled: whatthehelldidwedo.com.
And Alahverdian did enter their conversations about whether Knockderry was the right castle for them.
“The question was: Does Nicholas Alahverdian keep us from pursuing it. We came fairly close to not doing it because of the whole thing; we’re just looking to move on in our lives. Then we concluded if we don’t do it, then Nicholas Alahverdian has some measure of control in our life, and he just doesn’t.”
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The history of Knockderry Castle, and what lies ahead
According to a story in The Guardian last year, the castle was built in the 1850s for James Templeton, a textile manufacturer.
It sits on 7 acres over Loch Long, has six bedrooms, four reception rooms and a number of original features including turrets, stone balustrades and a minstrel gallery. But it needs extensive upgrading, as pictures on the couple’s blog attest.
“You could spend a lot of money” renovating, he said, “or a little less of a lot of money.” But their intention is to restore it to its former glory.
It will likely take at least a couple of years. “Eventually, way down the road,” he said, they may live there or keep it as a second home.
According to the couple’s blog, the castle served as a hospital for wounded soldiers in World War II and operated as a hotel for a number of years before returning as a private residence in the postwar years.
Andrew Carnegie, a friend of Templeton, the castle owner, was staying at the castle when he agreed in a letter to fund Scottish public libraries.
The most recent former owners had lived there for decades until losing it in a bankruptcy proceeding.
What's the status of Alahverdian's legal troubles?
Renovations should be well underway come June, when Alahverdian’s extradition hearing is now scheduled to finally begin after months of delays. Last week it was postponed again after Alahverdian refused to go to the courthouse, lawyers said.
A judge in November rejected Alahverdian’s claims of mistaken identity, including that the identifying tattoos on his arms must have been inked onto his body while his was in a coma.
Utah authorities have charged Alahverdian with two rapes and a third sexual assault, all occurring, they say, in 2008.
That was the same year two women at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, accused him of sexually assaulting them. One of those women took her case to trial, where Alahverdian was convicted of misdemeanor sexual imposition and public indecency. As part of his sentence, he was ordered to register as a sex offender.
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DNA from that case linked to the Utah rapes, investigators say.
A deputy county attorney is now handling Alahverdian’s prosecution since Leavitt left office.
The FBI has also charged him with some $200,000 in credit card fraud for cards he took out in his former foster father's name.
Contact Tom Mooney at: tmooney@providencejournal.com
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Utah prosecutor buys Scottish castle near where Alahverdian is jailed
