TOKYO (TR) – A court here last week handed the son of former Democratic Party (DP) lawmaker Katsuya Ogawa a prison term of four years over the molestation of six school girls in the Kanto area over a two-year period, reports the Jiji Press (June 21).
On June 21, presiding judge Keiju Komorita at the Tokyo District Court used the word “vicious” to describe the actions of Yosuke Ogawa, 23, in handing down the ruling. “You targeted elementary and middle school students because it is difficult for them to resist,” Komorita said. “You instilled a high degree of fear.”
The prosecution had sought a five-year term for the defendant, who was accused of indecent assault.
Four of the incidents took place while Ogawa was out on bail. On May 7, 2018, Ogawa grabbed hold of the chest of two elementary school girls on a road and at an apartment building in Nerima Ward, Tokyo. He also molested two other elementary school girls in Nerima that same month.
“Whether the first case or the second case, I don’t remember a thing,” Ogawa told police at the time.
Police also arrested Ogawa for two incidents in 2017. In the first, he molested an elementary school girl in Tokorozawa City, Saitama Prefecture. In the second, he attempted to fondle the body of a middle school girl in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward. Following a trial, he was released on bail in April, 2018.
On November 2, 2017, the day of his son’s first arrest, Katsuya Ogawa, who at the time was the DP’s secretary-general in the House of Councillors, submitted his resignation from the party. “I want to apologize to the girl and her family,” the lawmaker said at a press conference at the time.
