Prosecutors filed a summary indictment against former Lower House member Kentaro Sonoura and two of his former aides on a rare charge over cash gained through political fund-raising parties.

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office’s special investigation unit announced on Dec. 22 that the three are charged with violating the Political Fund Control Law by failing to report around 49 million yen ($370,000).

The two other suspects are Hayato Otani, 35, Sonoura’s former chief public secretary, and Shoji Sato, 80, his former policy secretary.

Aides in these positions are publicly funded.

The law requires politicians and their organizations to list earnings and expenditures of political funds in reports submitted to the government or local election administration commissions.

But the law is known to contain many loopholes concerning reports about money gained from fund-raising parties.

The bill for the Political Fund Control Law was submitted to the Diet by politicians, not the government.

According to the investigation unit, two political organizations headed by Sonoura, 50, underreported the funds: a fund management body called the “Study group of politics and the economy in new era,” and the LDP’s branch for the No. 5 electoral district in Chiba Prefecture, which Sonoura had represented.

Otani was chief of accounting for both organizations.

The study group failed to report a total of around 41 million yen in revenue or expenditures gained through six fund-raising parties held between 2018 and 2020.

The LDP office omitted around 8 million yen, including dining expenses, between 2018 and 2020.

According to sources, the underreported revenue was transferred to another organization, and some of it was spent as dining or entertainment expenses for Sonoura.

Sato, an experienced aide, explained to Otani how to underreport the funds and helped him with the accounting practices, the sources said.

Prosecuting the aides appeared to be a straightforward matter. But charging the politician was much trickier.

“The main culprit was the head of accounting,” a senior prosecution official said. “To prosecute a politician, we need to prove the individual was deeply involved in the underreporting, and that he or she had a motive to underreport political funds.”

Sonoura, in fact, initially told reporters that he had no knowledge of the underreporting, and that his aides never informed him beforehand of the matter.

To prove politicians were deeply involved, prosecutors must find evidence that they gave instructions to underreport funds, were informed in advance of such action by their accounting chiefs, or gave approval regarding the underreporting.

In Sonoura’s case, prosecutors found that his aides reported to him each time they planned to underreport income gained from fund-raising parties. They used memos that explained how much would be omitted from the political fund reports.

Prosecutors obtained such memos, emails and recordings as proof of Sonoura’s deep involvement.

“The reason aides report to politicians about underreporting is to seek their approval,” a prosecution official said.

Presented with the evidence, Sonoura admitted to the allegations during voluntary questioning by prosecutors.

Investigators quoted him as saying, “There would have been no underreporting if I had not given approval.”

As for Sonoura’s motive, prosecutors looked at how the underreported funds were spent.

They found that the aides did not embezzle the funds, but that part of them were spent as Sonoura’s dining or entertainment expenses.

The summary indictment against Sonoura did not include around 3 million yen that the study group failed to report because prosecutors could not conclude that the omission was deliberate.

Sonoura resigned from the Diet and left the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Dec. 21 before the summary indictment.

Instead of facing a criminal trial at a regular court, Sonoura’s case will be handled by the Tokyo Summary Court, which is expected to issue a fine of up to 1 million yen.

Prosecutors decided that a summary indictment was appropriate in his case because he had admitted to the wrongdoing and resigned from the Diet.

If Sonoura is convicted and fined, he will be barred from running in elections for five years as a general rule. He is expected to seek leniency concerning the five-year ban.