The Tokyo District Court sentenced Kimiyasu Koseki to a suspended 18-month prison term Thursday for causing financial damage to KSD, a mutual aid organization for small businesses that is embroiled in a bribery scandal.
Koseki, 41, was a senior managing director at KSD and is the son of Tadao Koseki, 80, the founder and former president of the government-authorized organization.
The elder Koseki is on trial for bribery and has admitted sending bribes to two former Diet members.
The court found Koseki guilty of damaging KSD by using 123 million yen of its funds to buy up between 1998 and 2000 some 110,000 copies of a CD of Japanese songs made by a female acquaintance of his father's.
The act constitutes breach of trust, the court ruled, although it suspended his sentence for three years.
The money was transferred to a bank account of the woman's entertainment agency, prosecutors said.
Presiding Judge Kohei Ikeda told the court Koseki "caused major damage by going against his duty as an officer in charge of accounting with oversight of KSD funds.
"He has grave responsibility for damaging trust in a government-authorized entity," the judge said.
As a reason for suspending the prison term, the judge said Koseki had acted following the instructions of his father.
In another case involving KSD, Hiroyoshi Yamada, 59, a former managing director of KSD, was sentenced July 26 by the same court to a prison term of 18 months, suspended for four years, for embezzlement and breach of trust in a similar CD purchase scheme for the singer.