A former Miyazaki Municipal Assembly member who goes by the name "Super Crazy-kun" was sentenced to 4½ years in prison on Friday for sexually assaulting a female acquaintance last September.
Makoto Nishimoto, 37, a former YouTuber and singer, had admitted to the crime in his trial at the Miyazaki District Court. Prosecutors had sought a sentence of seven years in prison.
According to prosecutors, Nishimoto sexually assaulted the woman in her 30s at a hotel in the city of Miyazaki, with the victim yelling out to fend off the defendant. After she escaped from the hotel room, she fell down some stairs, resulting in an injury to her left hand that took three weeks to heal.
Nishimoto was elected to the city assembly in April 2023. After he was arrested in September, the assembly unanimously passed a resolution calling for him to resign, which he did in February.
He has also run in various elections across the country, including the 2020 Tokyo gubernatorial race, finishing in 10th place. Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike won the election.
In 2021, he won a seat in an election for the Toda Municipal Assembly in Saitama Prefecture, but the victory was subsequently ruled invalid by the Supreme Court, since he had not resided in the city for three months or more — a requirement set out under the election law.
In an interview with the Tokyo Shimbun in 2021, Nishimoto said he ran in the race to “increase my popularity.”
The daily also reported that Nishimoto’s father was a member of an organized crime group, and that his mother left the family when he was 1 year old. He then became a member of a gang when he was in junior high, and was sent to a juvenile detention center three times.