TOKYO (TR) – The Tokyo District Court on Tuesday handed a former boxer a four-and-a-half-year prison term for severing the genitals of a lawyer last year, reports Mainichi Shimbun (July 5).
Presiding judge Kazunori Karei said described the act of Ikki Kotsugai, 25, who had admitted to removing an attorney’s penis with garden shears and flushing the organ down a toilet, as “truly serious.”
“As a result of the infliction of a truly serious, irreparable injury, the victim continues to be suffer in agony,” the judge said in explaining the punishment.
The prosecution had sought a six-year sentence.
On August 13, the defendant and his wife met the victim, who was 42 at the time, at his law office in Toranomon. After a brief discussion, Kotsugai began repeatedly punching the attorney in the face. With the lawyer nearly unconscious, the suspect then unzipped the victim’s pants and proceeded with the crime.
Kotsugai’s wife was employed at the law firm. The defense argued that Kotsugai acted under a false claim by his wife, who said the lawyer had “pressured her into a sexual relationship.” It was seeking a suspended sentence.
Kotsugai, a one-time professional boxer, was a graduate student studying law at Keio University at the time of the incident.
