Photo/Illutration Tsukasa Akimoto enters the Tokyo District Court on Sept. 7 with his lawyers. (Reina Kitamura)

Lower House member Tsukasa Akimoto on Sept. 7 received a four-year prison sentence for accepting bribes and witness tampering in a major casino-development scandal.

The Tokyo District Court also ordered Akimoto to pay about 7.6 million yen ($69,200) in back taxes.

The prosecution had sought a five-year prison sentence and an additional 7.6 million yen fine.

Akimoto, 49, claimed he was innocent. But the court dismissed his pleas for acquittal.

The court concluded the testimony given by the bribers about a meeting at the Diet members’ building, where Akimoto received 3 million yen, was “fully credible based on objective evidence.”

Akimoto denied that and insisted the meeting never occurred.

But the court said his claim was “nothing but a guess,” given that the bribe was taken.

The court also handed Akihiro Toyoshima, 42, Akimoto’s former policy secretary who was charged with the joint offense of accepting bribes, a sentence of two years in prison, suspended for four years.

The prosecution had sought a two-year prison sentence for Toyoshima.

According to the indictment, Akimoto received about 7.6 million yen in 2017 and 2018 from a Chinese gaming company seeking to join Japan’s program to build integrated resorts, including casinos. The funds were given to pay for his travel and other expenses.

At the time, Akimoto was serving as a senior vice minister in the Cabinet Office and oversaw the government’s plan to open integrated resorts to bolster the economy.

Between June and July in 2020 while he was out on bail, Akimoto promised rewards to the witnesses, who had at this point admitted to the bribery, to encourage them to give false testimony.

Prosecutors pointed out that Akimoto had informed the bribers of the legislative progress related to the integrated resorts project.

In the witness-tampering case, Akimoto took the lead and raised some of the money for acquisitions himself, prosecutors said.

But defense lawyers claimed that the cases “were fictional,” maintaining Akimoto’s innocence.

Regarding the September 2017 meeting during which Akimoto was alleged to have received 3 million yen at the Diet members’ building, the defense said he did not go to the building based on an appointment calendar and records from smartphone apps.

Akimoto entrusted payment for travel expenses and others to his aides, and he was not involved in the case, the defense argued.

Regarding the witness-tampering allegation, Akimoto “did not ask (them) to make false statements,” the defense said.

Akimoto was elected to represent Tokyo’s 15th electoral district and is currently serving his third term in office.

He left the Liberal Democratic Party upon his arrest in December 2019. But he has not resigned as a Diet member.

It marked the first time in about a decade that an active Diet member was arrested.

Before the ruling, Akimoto told The Asahi Shimbun he will seek re-election in the Lower House race scheduled this fall.

“I have nothing to hide, so I will run even if (I get) a guilty sentence,” he said.

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