Stephen Kovacs

Early life

Kovacs' hometown was Hampton, in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, and he later lived in Clifton, in Passaic County and in Watchung in Somerset County. He attended North Hunterdon High School. He was coached at the New York Athletic Club by Vasil Etropolski, the 1983 saber world champion from Bulgaria. There, he fenced for the Columbia Lions fencing team from 1990 to 1994, and was team captain. He overcame a serious fencing injury, after in 1992 suffering a rupture of his Achilles tendon while lunging during a college tournament. In 1994, when he was 22 years old, The New York Times reported that he was thought to have a good shot at making the 1996 US Olympic fencing team.

Kovacs was also part of the New York Athletic Club saber team led by Olympians Paul Friedberg and John Friedberg that won the 1993 USFA saber team championship. He left to work in business on Wall Street. The team had a 13–7 record for the season. At the same time, Kovacs served as an assistant saber coach at the New York Athletic Club.

In 2013–18, Kovacs was also a fifth grade teacher and taught fencing to girls and boys at the Princeton Junior School, in Princeton, in Mercer County, New Jersey.

In 2018, Kovacs founded and thereafter owned Kaprica United Fencing Academy in Bound Brook, in Somerset County, New Jersey, where he was head coach.

Kovacs was appointed the Ridge High School head boys’ fencing coach by the Bernards Township School District on November 11, 2019, for a salary of $8,542. The school is in the Basking Ridge section of Bernards Township, in Somerset County, New Jersey. In January 2020, the boys' team won the overall title in the Cetrullo Tournament, New Jersey's most important regular-season tournament. He was head coach through February 2021. A number of fencers on the school team attended the nearby Kaprica Fencing Academy, which Kovacs owned and where he was head coach.

A 16-year-old girl reported being sexually assaulted by Kovacs in Bridgewater multiple times in August and September 2021.

On October 19, Kovacs was released from jail as a result of his detention hearing. He was charged with felony fourth degree false swearing, and incarcerated once again in the Somerset County Jail, pending a detention hearing. Its primary responsibility is to review allegations of sexual misconduct, and to impose sanctions—up to banning a person for their lifetime from involvement in all Olympic sports. On October 29, 2021, SafeSport temporarily suspended Kovacs, pending an investigation by it of allegations against Kovacs.

Death On January 15, 2022, Kovacs committed suicide in Somerset County Jail. An investigation was initiated. According to a later lawsuit, the autopsy report stated that he had hanged himself with a laundry bag tied around his neck.

Kovacs was married and had two children. In January 2024, the children filed suit in Somerset County Superior Court, alleging the jail was negligent in not following its suicide prevention policy.