A 74-year-old retired police chief has been arrested on suspicion of paying two 16-year-old girls for sex in Sapporo, a Hokkaido police spokesman said Thursday.

Keiji Kato, who retired 15 years ago from the Hokkaido force, was arrested Wednesday for allegedly paying ¥6,000 each to the two high school girls to engage in sexual acts simultaneously in a Sapporo hotel Nov. 19 in violation of the law banning child prostitution, the spokesman said.

Kato, who lives in Sapporo, also allegedly paid one of the two girls for sex at another hotel in the city on Dec. 3, the spokesman said. The police quoted Kato as saying, "I didn't know they were minors."

Kato, who was chief of the Akauta police force north of Sapporo, met the two girls on a street in the Susukino red-light district, according to the Hokkaido police. The three exchanged cellphone numbers, the police said.

Kato's involvement surfaced after a parent of one of the girls consulted police.

Molester loses appeal

Kyodo

The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by a 71-year-old American man convicted by two lower courts of molesting children.

Alan Neil Lamph was sentenced by lower courts to 18 years in prison for molesting 15 girls aged 9 to 16 who were students at his English-conversation school in the city of Fukuoka between June 2003 and April 2009.

Lamph made video recordings of his molestations, the lower courts found.