YOUNGSTOWN >> A woman who served as an aide to the late U.S. Rep. James Traficant has been sentenced to two years in prison for stealing more than $100,000 from a woman with dementia.
The Vindicator reports attorney Sam Amendolara sought probation for 70-year-old Linda Kovachik, of Youngstown, and called Tuesday’s sentence “obscene,” blaming it on Kovachik’s ties to Traficant. Amendolara says the amount was closer to $50,000.
Kovachik pleaded guilty to felony theft in November for stealing from a 76-year-old woman she’d befriended in 2013 and from whom she obtained a power of attorney.
Mahoning County Judge Anthony D’Apolito called Kovachik an “opportunist.”
Traficant died in 2014 after a tractor tipped over on him. The Youngstown-area Democrat served seven years in federal prison after being convicted of bribery charges in 2002.