Accused Russian Mafia member sentenced to jail for scam here

A suspected member of the infamous Russian Mafia likely will spend nine months in jail for an insurance scam orchestrated here.

Gyorgy Kovacs told a judge and prosecutors Wednesday that he wants nothing more than to return to his homeland of Hungary.

But, Waynesboro Circuit Judge Humes J. Franklin wants to keep tabs on the alleged mafia man for a little while, and doled out a 1½-year sentence. Kovacs, 31, of Brooklyn, N.Y., already has spent nine months in jail awaiting trial and sentencing, however.

“If he’s going to stay in this country, I want to know what he’s doing because I don’t believe for a minute this was an innocent scheme,” Franklin said Wednesday.

Franklin declared Kovacs guilty three months ago of falsifying his driver’s license as well as two counts of falsifying an application for a car title at the local DMV office.

Investigators suspect that Kovacs and other New York mobsters targeted the Hopeman Parkway DMV to falsify licenses and other paperwork.

Among the two cars Kovacs falsely registered here was a 1981 Lincoln Town Car that was bombed in New York.

How the insurance scheme worked remains a mystery to authorities, as does why the Russian Mafia picked the Waynesboro DMV in the first place.

Though the FBI and New York Police are investigating other ties to the scheme, Kovacs’ trial is the only Virginia link that authorities have uncovered.

“I’d like to travel back to my home country,” Kovacs told Franklin. “I’m very sorry about the whole thing, and I’d like to go home.”