Crazy Crime King Gets Six Years; Audacious Scammer Wins "Lifetime Achievement Award"

Almost four years to the day after being charged with two counts of attempted murder, "businessman" Péter Tasnádi has finally been sentenced to prison. Earlier this morning in the Fővárosi Bíróság (Capital Court), the man that many people (but not us!) believe to be Budapest's "boss of bosses" was given six years for planning to whack his former partner and her boyfriend, among other crime. Holding up the proceedings for so long was Tasnádi's insistence that he was actually crazy as a coot, and thus eligible for medical release. In addition to the six years in the slammer, which apparently will include some time served, he has to pay a fine of Ft 6.3 million and cannot vote for six years. And speaking of sixes, by our count he has been either convicted or indicted for six major felonies: assault, embezzlement, fraud, blackmail, kidnapping and attempted murder. Or seven, if you count that awful yellow t-shirt in the pic at left, which, by the way, is known as a "wife-beater." [index.hu]

And in other zany true crime news:

• Police yesterday nabbed a 42-year-old man from Budapestwho was running a scam targeting aged Hungarian artists, actors and scientists. The con involved a mythical "lifetime achievement award" being given out by some European organization, which supposedly paid lots of euros - but required the victim to first send in some money. And unlike the annual "Best of Budapest," the dupes who paid for these awards didn't even get a cheesy little plaque to put on their wall. Outrageous! [caboodle.hu]
• Hungary's custom agents made an unusual seizure the weekend before last on the Serbian border: 45,000 boxes of smuggled counterfeit chewing gum. The kamurágógumi, said to be worth €15,000, was found during a routine search of a Czech-tagged truck. Should have taken it all out of the wrappers, balled it up and stuck it under the truck! [MTI]
• An accountant and mother of two teenagers from Budakeszi has admitted to murdering her newborn baby after apparently delivering the poor thing in secret at home. After being alerted by her doctor, police searched nearby trash cans and eventually found the tiny corpse hidden in the icebox of the family fridge. We reccomend the fish. [borsonlne.hu]
• A man who called in a bomb threat against Nyugati railway station was nabbed by the police, who said the 31-year-old perp was wanted for unrelated cases of fraud. To which they might as well add the bomb threat, since a thorough sweep of the station turned up no bomb, meaning it was fraudulent. [MTI]