Anaheim : Judge Finds Kovaletz Mentally Unfit for Trial
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A Superior Court judge ruled Friday that a man who held his mother hostage and barricaded himself inside his Anaheim home during a 20-hour standoff with police is not mentally competent to stand trial.
Frank Benjamin Kovaletz, 45, will be sent to a state mental facility after a hearing Dec. 4. He has been at UCI Medical Center since his arrest Aug. 25.
Kovaletz was charged with five counts of assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, one count of false imprisonment and two counts of firing a gun in a home.
Judge James O. Perez said he based his decision that Kovaletz was incompetent to stand trial on reports submitted by a psychologist and a psychiatrist appointed to examine him.
Kovaletz, who had one wooden leg at the time of the incident, recently had his other foot amputated because of complications from diabetes. He has been in and out of state and county mental hospitals for many years, court records show.
After a tense, daylong standoff between Kovaletz and police in which he reportedly fired several shots, he was lured outside by officers with a pack of cigarettes and was arrested. He had released his mother a short time before.
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