Shoichiro Hotta

Shoichiro Hotta, 57, allegedly violated a law regulating state subsidies and contributions. The law stipulates a maximum penalty of five years in prison or a ¥1 million fine for violators.

Tetsunari Sato, a 49-year-old former head of the bankrupt university's financial department, was arrested on the same allegations.

Hotta allegedly submitted window-dressed accounting records to the Education Ministry and defrauded the state out of the subsidies from fiscal 1999 to fiscal 2003.

While his arrest concerns some ¥8.7 million that the university illegally received in December 1999 and February 2000, investigators suspect that the school obtained some ¥560 million more between 2000 and 2003, and plan to file additional charges.

The university is embroiled in a number of scandals. About ¥5.4 billion out of ¥6.3 billion that it said had been donated at the time of its establishment was found to be fictitious. The university failed to pay its construction costs. And it was found to have taken out huge loans from moneylenders without the approval of its board of directors.

The Japan Times Weekly: Sept. 11, 2004
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