The Tokyo District Court handed a suspended prison term Wednesday to the daughter of a former Saitama governor for violating the Political Funds Control Law.

Momoko Ichikawa, 53, was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for four years. The scandal forced the resignation of her father, Yoshihiko Tsuchiya, as governor.

Ichikawa was found guilty of embezzling 116 million yen in donations and party ticket income from Tsuchiya's political fund management office, where she worked as a manager, to cover losses incurred by the financially troubled companies that she ran.

She also made false statements in the political funds records submitted to the Home Affairs Ministry for five years until 2003, the court said.

"Her deeds of making false entries in the records, which are the foothold for people to supervise political activities, seriously deviates from the purpose of the Political Funds Control Law, which aims to secure justice in politics," presiding Judge Toshiro Fujii said. "Her criminal responsibility is serious."

While the judge admonished Ichikawa for abusing her position as the daughter of an influential politician, he said he handed down a suspended sentence because she has shown deep remorse and has returned a large part of the money to the fund body.

According to the court, Ichikawa instructed an administrator to make false entries in her father's political funds records from 1999 to 2003.

She misappropriated 116 million yen from the office to cover losses in a consulting firm for aestheticians and three printing and advertisement design firms that she ran.

Tsuchiya is a veteran politician who once served as president of the House of Councilors and chief of the Environment Agency, now the Environment Ministry.

He became Saitama governor in 1992 and resigned last July, shortly after his office was raided by Tokyo prosecutors in connection with Ichikawa's arrest.

The prosecutors questioned Tsuchiya over his possible involvement in the embezzlement case but did not indict him because they could not prove he was aware of his daughter's misdeeds.