TOKYO — Tokyo Metropolitan Police on Monday arrested a psychiatrist who runs a clinic in Shinjuku Ward for allegedly sexually assaulting a female patient last year.
The arrest is far from the first for Jun Izawa, the 55-year-old director of Tokyo Clinic. On Monday, police accused him of engaging in non-consensual sexual intercourse with a patient last August.
In 2022, the site for weekly tabloid Flash reported on Izawa’s trial for assaulting his then girlfriend. During the trial proceedings, witnesses described a string of horrific domestic violence incidents.
“Domestic violence”
On August 3, Izawa appeared in court to face assault charges for the severe abuse of his former girlfriend, aged in her 20s.
Izawa, appearing unkempt and graying, repeatedly interrupted proceedings. When the prosecution presented photographs of the victim’s bruises and Line message exchanges as evidence, Izawa abruptly stood up, demanding to see the photos and accusing the victim of lying on the stand.
The victim testified that she began dating Izawa in April 2021 after initially being his patient. “It began when he invited me out for a meal after he saw me outside of regular clinic hours,” she testified.
They started living together in October. Izawa’s attitude then changed drastically, she testified.
“I began to experience domestic violence,” she said. “I was instructed to take large quantities of multiple medications, including Abilify, which is used to treat schizophrenia, and I was practically brainwashed.”
According to the victim, the physical abuse was relentless. “Punching and kicking were everyday occurrences. He would hurl abuse at me while poking me with an umbrella, and pinch my arms with DIY rubber-band clips as ‘punishment,'” she recalled.
The abuse culminated in late February 2022 when Izawa forced her to pick up trash on the street near his car while wearing only her underwear. Izawa then fled the scene to avoid public attention.
Panicking, she slit her wrists. After she was rushed to the hospital and received stitches, Izawa became enraged the following day during an argument and tore open the freshly sutured wounds. The injury severed her nerves, permanently destroying the sensation in her left hand. The incident finally prompted her to file a police report.
Freely dispensing prescription pills
Throughout the investigation, Izawa denied the charges, dismissing the victim’s claims as “a woman’s delusion.”
However, Izawa’s dark history extends beyond domestic violence. Medical insiders and former patients told Flash he was notorious among drug-seekers for freely dispensing prescription pills.
In 2007, he was subjected to an inspection by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government for excessively prescribing the highly addictive psychotropic drug Ritalin. He was fined
Former patients reported consultations lasting less than a minute, noting the clinic functioned more like a pharmacy.
Multiple women have come forward alleging Izawa preyed on vulnerable, emotionally unstable young women by using what is termed on their internet as pien-kei, meaning to use prescription drugs as bait.
One former patient claimed Izawa suddenly exposed his genitals during a consultation, offering her copious amounts of medication or “weight-loss pills” if she touched him.
Another woman, seeking treatment for insomnia, alleged Izawa groped her thighs, prescribed 19 pills a day, and later showed up at her home. When she refused him entry, he stuffed 500 pills into her mailbox over the course of a week.
Arrest record
Izawa’s arrest record also includes an assault of a male patient that resulted in a fracture. In 2008, he was accused of stalking a former female patient.
After the aforementioned girlfriend lodged her complaint citing abuse, police launched an investigation. In March, Izawa was accused of violating the Stimulants Control Law for possessing 0.28 grams of kakuseizai (methamphetamine) at his home.
Later that month, Izawa was re-arrested for assault against the same woman, including kicking her in the thigh. The following month, he was arrested again for quasi-forcible indecency against a female university student in her 20s who was a patient. He was suspected of touching her chest during a consultation at the Tokyo Clinic under the guise of checking her lungs.
That May, he was re-arrested for defamation of a female patient. He sent false messages five times to the woman’s father’s workplace. In July, he was re-arrested for forced sexual intercourse with another female patient in her 20s. In that case, he was suspected of calling her back after a consultation and pushing her to the floor.
In August of last year, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government revoked Tokyo Clinic’s designation as a welfare-receiving medical institution and an independent living support medical institution due to his convictions in multiple criminal cases involving patient victims.
“He says he didn’t do it or doesn’t remember, but I don’t understand how he could forget,” the first victim told the court in August 2022. “He injured me badly enough to need stitches and smashed three of my cell phones. I want him to quickly admit his crimes and apologize.”
