[sumo] Yokozuna supporter - more gossip

[Barbara Ann Klein]

Apparently the koenkai head ran around with other high-powered company - the
PM.  This is from the Mainichi Daily News
 
 
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/waiwai/news/20060714p2g00m0dm009000c.html
 
Top sumo supporter bites the dust for grappling with teenage prostitutes

Yokozuna Asashoryu's biggest backer was a man who made his money out of
logging. But now the only logging he'll be doing is of time spent behind
bars following his arrest for plying the services of hundreds of schoolgirl
prostitutes, according to Friday (7/21).

Apart from Asashoryu, Tomoyoshi Wada, the 54-year-old chairman of the grand
champion's supporters association, has mingled with plenty of Japan's movers
and shakers, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

But it's the Tokushima Prefecture's mixing with teenaged professionals that
resulted in his recent arrest for breaking the child prostitution law.

"Wada was called the 'King of Tokushima Forests.' But he wasn't involved in
just logging, he was also into driving schools and hospitals. He was your
typical rich country squire and a regular on the list of top taxpayers,"
Shinji Kawasaka, head of the Asia-Pacific Economic Research Center, tells
Friday. "He was basically like a surrogate parent for Asashoryu. He looked
after Asashoryu spiritually and materially from about the time he became an
ozeki. He really helped out when the yokozuna was worried about getting
married. Whenever there was a basho on, you could rest assured that Wada
would be around Asashoryu for nearly all of the 15 days the tourney went
on."

Wada is accused of using a child prostitute from an Ikebukuro brothel that
cops shut down in a raid in April. The cathouse is famous for supplying
girls aged from 14 to 20, of which there are about 20 on its books. It
advertises in the classifieds of sleazier newspapers and boasts of annual
sales of about 45 million yen. It charges 60,000 yen for a 90-minute session
for a girl of junior high school age and 40,000 yen if the girl is at high
school. (Despite all this information, Friday doesn't give the name of the
establishment.)

"Wada (allegedly) paid 60,000 yen cash to a 16-year-old unemployed girl for
sex in a room at the Shinbashi Dai-Ichi Hotel on the night of March 12. Wada
always got any girl he (purportedly) paid for sex to strip naked so he could
take a Polaroid shot of her," a reporter for a national daily tells the
weekly. "He had over 100 photos of naked girls in his home. The photos were
all placed neatly in an album, so it looks like he enjoyed himself looking
back at all the girls as well."

The establishment Wada is accused of using is notorious.

"It found its junior high- and high school workers from online matchmaking
sites. It paid the girls half of whatever was made from a transaction, which
is a better rate than they would be able to get freelancing, so it had
little trouble recruiting staff," a writer for an adult entertainment
magazine says. "The company used to answer its phone by saying 'Do you want
one from high school or junior high,' so there's no doubt that Wada knew the
girl he was with was only 16. He paid her 60,000 yen even though she was of
high school age because 20,000 yen of that was for letting him take her
photo in the nude."

An insider from the Takasago-Beya, Asashoryu's stable, says many had felt
there was something about Wada that didn't work out.

"Wada has a son in his mid-20s and a daughter studying at university. He
bought the kids a pricey apartment in Minato-ku. Wada would spend half his
time in Tokyo. While he was here, he'd spend half his time with his kids in
their place and the other half staying in a room at the Dai-Ichi Hotel," the
stable insider tells Friday. "Wada used to say that staying at the hotel
made it easier for him to get his work done, but it turns out that what he
was really doing was romping around with young girls. He claims there were
about 80, but there was a lot more than that." (By Ryann Connell)