The founder of now-defunct temporary staffing agency Goodwill Group Inc. was sentenced Wednesday to three months in prison, suspended for two years, for driving on Tokyo's Metropolitan Expressway at a speed of nearly 150 kilometers per hour.
In handing down the sentence, Judge Goichi Nishino of the Tokyo District Court said Masahiro Origuchi's speed exceeded the expressway's limit by over 87 kph, and was a "highly dangerous act."
But the judge suspended his prison term because Origuchi promised he will never drive again, and made a donation as a demonstration of his remorse.
According to the ruling, Origuchi, 57, drove a Mercedes at 147 kph on the expressway in the capital in the early hours of Feb. 25.
In 1995, Origuchi established Goodwill Group, later renamed Radia Holdings Inc. and then Advantage Resourcing Japan Inc., but he resigned from the post of chairman after one of its subsidiaries was hit by an illegal staffing service scandal in 2008.