KANAGAWA (TR) – Kanagawa Prefectural Police have arrested a city councilor in Shizuoka Prefecture for allegedly engaging in illicit acts with an underage boy and soliciting obscene photographs from another youth last year, reports NHK (Jan. 10).
In December, Masaji Shimada, a 70-year-old city council member for Kosai City, Shizuoka, allegedly paid the boy, a 17-year-old second-year high school student, to engage in acts deemed obscene at a hotel in Yokohama.
Shimada has also been accused of asking another boy in Yokohama, aged 14 at the time, to send him a photograph showing the youth’s lower body via the smartphone application Line on March 19, 2017.
On Wednesday, police planned to search the residence of Shimada for evidence in the cases.
In 2010, Shimada was first elected to office as an independent candidate. Currently in his third term, he serves on a construction-related committee.
A standout track-and-field athlete while in school, Shimada is also employed as a coach of the pole vault for men at Chukyo University in Nagoya.