Skibane
06-26-2004, 01:28 AM
By Ryann Connell, Staff Writer
Mainichi News (http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/waiwai/face/index.html) ("Wai-Wai!")
June 25, 2004
Kazuhide Uekusa was almost destined to appear in the limelight. An elite student, academic and bureaucrat, he became a celebrity financial analyst widely regarded as one of Japan's finest economic minds.
Yet, when the spotlight was turned on Uekusa, it focused on his perversion rather than his precision, according to Josei Seven (7/8).
Uekusa entered a not guilty plea when his trial for breaking a local government ordinance by peeping up a schoolgirl's skirt opened, but statements from prosecutors left a nation already stunned by Uekusa's arrest feeling even number.
Despite Uekusa's pleas of innocence, working against him is a mountain of evidence, an earlier confession to the accusation and a prior conviction after it was revealed to the court that he had been convicted and fined for groping a schoolgirl commuter in Kanagawa Prefecture back in 1998.
"(Uekusa) has an extraordinarily strong fascination with peeping up the skirts of high schoolgirls and groping," Josei Seven quotes a prosecution lawyer as telling the Tokyo District Court on June 17.
Testimony given by one of the Kanagawa Prefectural Police officers who arrested Uekusa at JR Shinagawa Station in Tokyo on April 8 was damning.
"Whenever a schoolgirl rode on the escalator, Uekusa would jog up behind her and stand on a step two steps to her rear. He would place some baggage on the step between himself and the girl. Then, he would place his right leg on the same step as his luggage and bend down, resting his right arm on his right thigh. In his hand he held a handkerchief, which he folded back to conceal a mirror he used to leer up the schoolgirl's skirt," the officer tells the court.
A raid on Uekusa's home in the wake of his arrest tells much of his proclivities.
"He used to buy schoolgirl uniforms and miniskirts for women, then made them wear the outfits as they crawled around while he photographed them," the police officer says. "We seized 509 photos scantily clad or naked women, 240 of which had been taken with a Polaroid, 238 with a digital camera and 31 with a mobile phone camera."
Several other sordid items were also seized from Uekusa's home, shocking his unwitting wife and 10-year-old son.
In his Mercedes Benz, Uekusa had hidden 2 DVDs filled with footage taken from hidden cameras directed up unsuspecting women's skirts. Nearby were another 10 adult DVDs, mostly with a train groping theme.
"We think the schoolgirl uniforms were also in the car," a source close to the investigation tells Josei Seven.
Another 12 dirty videos were found inside Uekusa's gorgeous home worth over 100 million yen despite having a mere 80 square meters of floorspace. Of these, three were about molesting female commuters and another eight featured sneak camera footage.
"He'd hidden them under lock and key in a room of his own," the police source says.
Chuo University emeritus professor Yasumasa Shimomura says Uekusa is unlikely to be punished severely.
"He confessed soon after his arrest, though he later recanted, but it still means there's a high likelihood of conviction," Shimomura tells Josei Seven. "He's already suffered quite a bit by losing his university teaching jobs and social standing, so even the severest punishment the court would likely hand out is a suspended sentence or maximum three months in jail."
Mainichi News (http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/waiwai/face/index.html) ("Wai-Wai!")
June 25, 2004
Kazuhide Uekusa was almost destined to appear in the limelight. An elite student, academic and bureaucrat, he became a celebrity financial analyst widely regarded as one of Japan's finest economic minds.
Yet, when the spotlight was turned on Uekusa, it focused on his perversion rather than his precision, according to Josei Seven (7/8).
Uekusa entered a not guilty plea when his trial for breaking a local government ordinance by peeping up a schoolgirl's skirt opened, but statements from prosecutors left a nation already stunned by Uekusa's arrest feeling even number.
Despite Uekusa's pleas of innocence, working against him is a mountain of evidence, an earlier confession to the accusation and a prior conviction after it was revealed to the court that he had been convicted and fined for groping a schoolgirl commuter in Kanagawa Prefecture back in 1998.
"(Uekusa) has an extraordinarily strong fascination with peeping up the skirts of high schoolgirls and groping," Josei Seven quotes a prosecution lawyer as telling the Tokyo District Court on June 17.
Testimony given by one of the Kanagawa Prefectural Police officers who arrested Uekusa at JR Shinagawa Station in Tokyo on April 8 was damning.
"Whenever a schoolgirl rode on the escalator, Uekusa would jog up behind her and stand on a step two steps to her rear. He would place some baggage on the step between himself and the girl. Then, he would place his right leg on the same step as his luggage and bend down, resting his right arm on his right thigh. In his hand he held a handkerchief, which he folded back to conceal a mirror he used to leer up the schoolgirl's skirt," the officer tells the court.
A raid on Uekusa's home in the wake of his arrest tells much of his proclivities.
"He used to buy schoolgirl uniforms and miniskirts for women, then made them wear the outfits as they crawled around while he photographed them," the police officer says. "We seized 509 photos scantily clad or naked women, 240 of which had been taken with a Polaroid, 238 with a digital camera and 31 with a mobile phone camera."
Several other sordid items were also seized from Uekusa's home, shocking his unwitting wife and 10-year-old son.
In his Mercedes Benz, Uekusa had hidden 2 DVDs filled with footage taken from hidden cameras directed up unsuspecting women's skirts. Nearby were another 10 adult DVDs, mostly with a train groping theme.
"We think the schoolgirl uniforms were also in the car," a source close to the investigation tells Josei Seven.
Another 12 dirty videos were found inside Uekusa's gorgeous home worth over 100 million yen despite having a mere 80 square meters of floorspace. Of these, three were about molesting female commuters and another eight featured sneak camera footage.
"He'd hidden them under lock and key in a room of his own," the police source says.
Chuo University emeritus professor Yasumasa Shimomura says Uekusa is unlikely to be punished severely.
"He confessed soon after his arrest, though he later recanted, but it still means there's a high likelihood of conviction," Shimomura tells Josei Seven. "He's already suffered quite a bit by losing his university teaching jobs and social standing, so even the severest punishment the court would likely hand out is a suspended sentence or maximum three months in jail."