YAMANASHI (TR) – A former reporter, 28, for public broadcaster NHK accused of rape in two cases in Yamagata and Yamanashi prefectures is expected to be arrested in a third case, investigative sources have revealed, reports TV Asahi (Apr. 5).
On Thursday, Yamanashi Prefectural Police are expected to arrest Yasutaka Tsurumoto in the alleged rape of a woman inside her residence in Yamanashi in December of 2013.
Tsurumoto is currently under prosecution at the Kofu District Court in the alleged rape of another woman the following year. “If you don’t resist, I won’t harm you,” the defendant reportedly threatened. The results of a DNA analysis items left at the crime scene proved to be a match for the suspect.
On February 6, police first arrested Tsurumoto, then a reporter for an affiliate of NHK’s Yamagata Broadcasting Station in Sakata City, Yamagata, in the alleged rape of a woman, aged in her 20s, inside her residence in the Murayama locality of Yamagata about one year ago.
After graduating from Waseda University in 2011, Tsurumoto joined the public broadcaster in Kofu City, Yamanashi. In July of 2015, he was transferred to the Yamagata Broadcasting Station. He moved to the affiliate in Sakata last year.
Tsurumoto was terminated by NHK on February 16.
