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Kumamoto: Government staffer accused of paying high school girl for sex

KUMAMOTO (TR) – Kumamoto Prefectural Police have arrested a 52-year-old male staff member for the prefectural government for allegedly paying a high school girl for sex last year, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Feb. 18).

In the middle of February, Takahiro Matsuoka, who oversees a marine products division at the government, allegedly paid the girl, then 16, to engage in acts deemed obscene inside a parked vehicle in Kita Ward while knowing she was a minor.

Matsuoka, who has been accused of violating the anti-child prostitution law, denies the allegations. “I didn’t do it,” the suspect was quoted by the Yatsushiro Police Station.

According to police, Matsuoka met the girl on a social-networking service.

The incident is the second for Matsuoka. In 2015, he was accused of molesting another school girl at JR Kumamoto Station.

A summary court subsequently ordered Matsuoka to pay a fine of 200,000 yen. The prefectural government also suspended him from work for five months.