A former senior police officer in Chiba Prefecture was sentenced Thursday to 14 months in prison for paying a high school girl for sex on several occasions between last October and January in violation of the law against prostitution involving minors.
The Chiba District Court handed down the sentence on Hisao Nakamura, 39, of Wakaba Ward, Chiba. The prosecution had demanded a two-year prison term for him.
Judge Akira Kanaya said in the ruling that Nakamura committed "a shameless and infamous" crime, abusing his duty as a police officer by having sex with the high school girl.
Nakamura met the girl when she reported the theft of her bicycle at Ichihara Police Station around June 1999, the court said.
The two had sex on three occasions, with Nakamura paying her a total of 450,000 yen. She was 16 when the two first had sex and had turned 17 by the last occasion, police said.
At one point in December, the court said, Nakamura pressured her to have sex with him by threatening to distribute nude photographs of her.