Overview
- Fukuoka District Court, which delivered its remand retrial ruling Monday, found radiological technologist Yuki Ezaki guilty and imposed a 1 year 6 month prison term suspended for 3 years.
- In May 2018 inside a school chest-screening van in Fukuoka City, prosecutors said Ezaki reached from behind and groped a 15-year-old over her clothes during an X-ray check.
- Presiding Judge Shinichi Suzushima said the first interview used a forensic method that recorded the student’s account while her memory was fresh.
- The court found her description consistent with what she later told her mother and homeroom teacher and said Ezaki exploited his role during a school health check.
- The case returned for retrial after the Fukuoka High Court in 2022 threw out a 2021 acquittal for misjudging testimony and ordered the district court to re-evaluate the evidence.