Judge Sentenced in Teenage Sex Case

TOKYO — A judge on Japan’s second-highest court was handed a suspended prison sentence Monday for paying for sex with three schoolgirls, the youngest of whom was 14.

The Tokyo High Court judge, Yasuhiro Muraki, 43, is one of several prominent Japanese men--including teachers, bureaucrats, doctors, business executives and police--who have been arrested in recent months in a nationwide crackdown on the schoolgirl prostitution that is epidemic here.

In issuing the ruling, the Tokyo District Court, which is a rung lower than the one on which Muraki served, scolded the defendant.

“This unprecedented, shameful crime by a judge trampled on the trust of citizens, significantly harmed the authority of the judiciary and left a blot difficult to remove from the history of the judiciary,” Presiding Judge Megumi Yamamuro told Muraki.

But instead of addressing Muraki as “hikoku,” or “defendant,” as is customary in a Japanese court, Yamamuro called him “kimi,” a term that means “you,” as used with a colleague.

Still, Muraki’s two-year prison sentence was suspended for five years, essentially meaning that he will be on probation for that period. Yamamuro said that sending Muraki to prison would be too harsh a punishment for the crime.

Although prison sentences for paying for sex with children tend to be light in Japan, the social consequences are not. Most people lose their jobs.

Court Opted for Impeachment

Muraki now is facing impeachment. Although he submitted his resignation soon after his May arrest, the court opted instead to temporarily suspend him and start the more serious impeachment proceedings. If the impeachment hearing--scheduled to begin next month--is successful, Muraki also will be barred from practicing law. He would be the first Japanese judge in two decades to be impeached.

Muraki was found guilty of paying a 14-year-old junior high school girl about $200 to have sex with him in a hotel in January, as well as of paying for sexual encounters with a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old in April.

Teenage prostitution is rampant among middle-class Japanese girls, who crave the expensive designer goods they can buy with the money they make.

Until recently, much of it apparently was condoned: Before 1997, when a controversial ordinance was passed, it was legal in Tokyo for adults to have consensual sex with girls older than 12, unless it was arranged by an intermediary.

Many groups, including some teachers and parents, opposed the change in Tokyo’s law because it would bring shame to girls and their schools if the children were required to testify against their clients.

In 1999, parliament enacted a law against child prostitution, with punishment of up to three years in prison and fines of up to $10,000.

Arrests Double From Same Period Last Year

Lately, police have stepped up enforcement. The National Police Agency reported 101 arrests of men for having sex with teenage prostitutes and for child pornography in the first six months of this year, double that of the same period last year.

The girls sometimes meet older men through so-called dating clubs, essentially apartments where the girls wait for men to come by. The fee is split between the club and the girl.

Another venue is telephone clubs, where men wait for girls to phone in. The clubs are advertised on tissue packets and leaflets handed out near train stations--even near schools.

Increasingly, however, the meeting place is the Internet. The National Police Agency has reported 46 such cases this year involving teenage prostitution, up from a single case last year.

Reports of men being arrested for having sex with underage girls appear regularly in Japanese newspapers. On Aug. 10, for example, an elementary school teacher was arrested in Fukuoka in southern Japan for paying a 14-year-old he’d met through a telephone club $200 to have sex in a hotel. He claimed that he thought she was 19.

As Muraki, clad in a rumpled blue suit and hanging his head, listened to the verdict Monday, the presiding judge urged him to change his life: “I hope you will have a viewpoint that you will live for others from now on.”

Muraki bowed deeply and left the courtroom, escorted by two officials.

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Makiko Inoue of The Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report.