The Supreme Court on July 4 rejected an appeal from a former Environment Agency director general, letting stand a lower court sentence of three years in prison and a 300 million yen fine for tax evasion.
Toshiyuki Inamura earned about 2.8 billion yen through speculative stock trading in Kokusai Kogyo and other firms through Koshin, a securities speculative group led by Mitsuhiro Kotani, over three years from 1986. Inamura was found guilty of not reporting the income and avoiding some 1.7 billion yen in income taxes. Inamura had pleaded guilty to the charges.
The Tokyo District Court, which first tried Inamura, sentenced him to three years and four months in prison. But prosecutors sent an appeal to the Tokyo High Court, saying the lack of a fine on the defendant was unlawful.
The high court scrapped the lower court ruling and gave Inamura both time in prison and a fine, prompting him to appeal to the top court. Inamura is a native of Tochigi Prefecture and was elected to the Lower House eight times starting in 1969. He was appointed Environment Agency director general in the third Cabinet of former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.