A jury in Otsego County found Frank W. Kovacs II, the former mayor of the Village of Laurens, guilty of rape following a four-day trial in Cooperstown. The 62-year-old was convicted after jurors deliberated for about three and a half hours, and he now faces up to 25 years in state prison when he is sentenced in December — while a separate, 14-count felony indictment still awaits him in Saratoga County.
Acting Otsego County District Attorney Christopher Di Donna announced the conviction, according to WKTV. The seven-woman, five-man jury heard evidence presented by Bradley J. Moses detailing how Kovacs forced sexual intercourse with another person at his home in the Village of Laurens on December 15, 2018, per the same account. New York State Police Investigator Michael Little testified that Kovacs admitted to vaginal intercourse with his stepdaughter at his residence, and jurors watched a recorded interview in which that admission was captured, according to Di Donna's account relayed by the station.
A Mayor Arrested Twice in Under a Year
Kovacs' legal troubles trace back to December 2024, when New York State Police opened an investigation that led an Otsego County grand jury to indict him on two counts of first-degree rape and three counts of first-degree criminal sexual act. He was arrested for the first time on June 16, 2025, according to New York State Police. That arrest came just weeks after Kovacs ran unopposed and won a two-year term as Mayor of the Village of Laurens in the municipal election held on March 18, 2025, according to a public notice published by The Daily Star.
The case widened considerably in March 2026, when New York State Police arrested Kovacs a second time, this time on 14 felony counts in Saratoga County — eight counts of first-degree rape, three counts of first-degree criminal sexual act, and three counts of first-degree sexual abuse. State police allege he repeatedly sexually assaulted a minor in Clifton Park between 2008 and 2011. The agency says the multi-county probe involved investigators from Troop C in Otsego County and Troop G in Saratoga County, after secondary child abuse allegations surfaced in February 2025.
Kovacs was arrested at his place of employment in Oneonta in connection with the Saratoga County charges and arraigned in Clifton Park Town Court, where he was remanded to the Saratoga County Correctional Facility in lieu of $50,000 cash, $250,000 bond, or a $500,000 partially secured bond, according to AllOtsego.com.
Village Governance Carried On Amid the Charges
Village board records show that Village of Laurens meeting minutes throughout late 2025 contained no official discussion of Kovacs' pending criminal charges, even as he continued presiding over village events, the outlet reported. Laurens is a tiny community — incorporated in 1811, covering just 0.13 square miles with a population of 185 as of the 2020 Census, according to the U.S. Census Bureau data cited on Wikipedia — meaning the mayor's prosecution has unfolded in close quarters with the people he served.
Sentencing Set for December, Saratoga Case Still Pending
Kovacs is scheduled to be sentenced on December 7 in Otsego County, with Judge Michael F. Getman presiding over that hearing as he did the trial. Getman took office as an Otsego County Judge on January 1, 2021, after nearly 30 years as a local prosecutor and attorney, according to AllOtsego.com's earlier profile of the judge.
Under New York Penal Law § 130.35 and § 70.02, Rape in the First Degree is classified as a Class B violent felony, carrying a mandatory determinate state prison sentence ranging from 5 to 25 years for a first-time felony offender, according to RAINN. That statute is why Kovacs faces up to 25 years behind bars for the Otsego County conviction alone — a number that does not account for the 14 pending felony counts still before the courts in Saratoga County.
