A mentally disabled woman who was forced into prostitution was given a six-year prison term for fatally stabbing an elderly client she was trying to steal from at a Tokyo love hotel.

The Tokyo District Court on Feb. 20 convicted Haruka Fujii, 26, of injury resulting in the death of the 82-year-old customer in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district in 2022.

Prosecutors had sought a nine-year prison sentence, but the court took into account Fujii’s mental condition that made her vulnerable to exploitation and prone to involuntary criminal activity.

In the lay judge trial that began on Feb. 6, the defense did not dispute the facts of the crime or Fujii’s responsibility for the man’s death.

She said at the trial that she met the man on the street for the first time on the night of Jan. 21, 2022.

They entered a love hotel located in a corner of the nightlife district about 400 meters north of JR Ikebukuro Station.

She received 10,000 yen ($66) from the man, a resident of Saitama, for her services.

While he was in the shower, Fujii took about 30,000 yen from his wallet and tried to leave the hotel room.

But before she could get out, he emerged and realized she had taken his money. During their ensuing argument, she stabbed him in the chest and thigh with a box cutter that she had been carrying.

Security cameras caught Fujii leaving the hotel alone about an hour after the two checked in.

On the following morning, she was arrested in Hachioji, western Tokyo.

During the trial, the defense noted that Fujii has a mild intellectual disability and severe attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which causes her to act impulsively and opportunistically.

As a child, Fujii, who was born in Hiroshima Prefecture, often did whatever she wanted to do,　took the possessions of others and had memory lapses, according to the testimonies of her mother and others.

She had received medical and welfare support since childhood and visited a psychiatric clinic from the age of 6.

Fujii attended special-needs classes in junior high and high school, and she also used “after-school day services” for children with disabilities.

She grew to trust the staff members at these facilities, according to the testimonies.

But after she graduated from high school, the after-school day care was no longer available to her. Her self-injurious behavior, which had continued since high school, worsened.

She also took excessive amounts of medication and had hallucinations and delusions, leading to hospitalizations.

Fujii worked at various jobs, including in convenience stores and factories, but she never stayed for long.

When she was 22, Fujii gave birth to a girl, who was put in the care of Fujii’s mother and others.

Since Fujii was becoming more agitated and violent, the family decided that Fujii should live alone.

In June 2021, a female acquaintance introduced Fujii to a man. The acquaintance described Fujii as “a woman with a habit of helping (men) financially,” according to court testimony.

Fujii developed a fondness for the man and began living with him in Tokyo or staying at an Internet cafe and other places in the capital.

In August that year, her family’s home was damaged in a torrential rainstorm.

Her mother said she became too busy raising Fujii’s child while living as an evacuee. She could no longer provide help for Fujii.

Almost everything that had supported Fujii—schools, after-school care, local government services, medical care and her mother’s home—was gone.

Fujii began to engage in prostitution, and the man she had grown fond of acted as her pimp.

She promised him 20,000 yen every day and started stealing money from customers’ wallets. If a problem arose with a client, the man or his brother would handle it, the court heard.

The man was in a relationship with another woman, who found clients for Fujii over the internet.

At the trial, it was revealed that the man had stated he “only saw (Fujii) as a tool to make money by taking advantage of her liking of (him).”

He also exploited Fujii’s mental disability to prevent her from leaving him by falsely telling her that the police were looking for her, according to testimony.

The man was also said to have been violent toward Fujii on a daily basis.

Fujii underwent a psychiatric evaluation before the trial and told the doctor that she carried the cutter to slash her wrist “because it was hard to sell my body.”

The doctor testified that Fujii was prone to unintentional involvement in crime.

While “having a mental disability or ADHD alone rarely leads directly to crime,” Fujii’s disorder was so severe that she lost her place in society when those around her were unable to provide support, the doctor said.

Because of her characteristics, she “took the worst possible action in a haphazard manner” at the love hotel in 2022, the doctor said.

The court condemned the crime as “grave,” but it did take note of Fujii’s mental condition.

“She was in an inappropriate environment, was easily involved in crimes and was prone to sudden, impulsive and inappropriate behavior in unexpected situations,” the ruling said.

“There is room for a certain degree of sympathy, and it should be taken into consideration to a certain extent.”