Japan's O.J., Miura, beats the rap after 15yrs

[Mulboyne]

Here he is working as a judge at an AV Queen contest held in Roppongi last October. I posted a picture from this event before here without noticing him in the background.

If Miura had been (a) alive (b) free (c) in Japan, he would have been judging this year's event tonight in Shinjuku. The organizers thought his case might go well and he would be back to attend but they did decide to book a replacement.

[IkemenTommy]

[Greji]

That really had a good flow. Anyway Greji, are you going?

Mulboyne's bouncing at the door and he won't let me in.....

[IkemenTommy]

Mulboyne's bouncing at the door and he won't let me in.....

Mulboyne IS the judge.

[Mike Oxlong]

A Japanese businessman who hanged himself in his jail cell while facing trial in his wife's death killed another woman 30 years ago before withdrawing thousands of dollars from her bank account, police said Tuesday.

Kazuyoshi Miura, 61, was under investigation for the second death when he committed suicide in October, the Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site.

Investigators said they have a strong circumstantial case against Miura in the murder of 34-year-old Chizuko Shiraishi, who traveled from Japan to Los Angeles in March 1979 without telling her friends or family and disappeared.

The evidence is "substantial and compelling," the police department said in a statement announcing that a news conference about the case is planned for Wednesday.

Detective Rick Jackson said Miura gradually withdrew money from a bank account belonging to Shiraishi, who received a $21,000 divorce settlement shortly before she checked into a Hollywood hotel with Miura.

Her body was found in a field in May 1979 but was unidentified for five years, until a Japanese reporter gave police her dental records.

The same detectives who investigated the death of Miura's wife, Kazumi, recently reclassified Shiraishi's death as a homicide. They also wrote a report that says Miura killed her, and they were working with prosecutors to bring charges.

"Not only did he have the opportunity and motive to kill but he had the mindset and capability," Jackson said. "He did the same thing to his wife for a similar motive — financial gain."

Miura kept changing his story about Shiraishi's whereabouts, saying she had gone to northern Japan to visit relatives or friends or was caring for her sick mother, detectives said...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090114/ap_on_re_us/japanese_businessman_2

[Mulboyne]

He's still winning that handcuff case from the grave:

Mainichi: Court orders Yahoo Japan, Sankei daily to pay widow over photo of suicide victim

A court has ordered the Sankei Shimbun national daily and Yahoo Japan Corp. to pay compensation to the widow of a suicide victim for publishing a decades-old photo of him in handcuffs following his death.

On June 15, the Tokyo District Court ordered the Sankei Shimbun and Yahoo to pay 660,000 yen to the wife of Kazuyoshi Miura, who was found hanged at a Los Angeles Police Department detention center after being arrested in 2008 over the 1981 shooting of his then wife. The photo in question shows Miura in handcuffs after his 1985 arrest by Japanese police over the Los Angeles killing.

"The photo of him in handcuffs infringes on his wife's affection and respect for her deceased husband beyond tolerable limits," Presiding Judge Shigeo Matsunami said in handing down the ruling.

Miura's wife had sued the companies claiming that the photo and the article published by Sankei Shimbun and then carried on the Yahoo! Japan website several days after Miura's suicide inflicted mental distress on her. The ruling marks the first time Yahoo Japan has been ordered to pay compensation for carrying a photograph distributed by a newspaper company.

According to the ruling, the Sankei Shimbun article quoted the mother of Miura's former wife as saying in October 2008, "(Miura) asked his acquaintance to kill my daughter and swindled a massive amount of insurance benefits."

"There is no need to carry a picture of Miura in handcuffs from over 20 years ago, and the case constitutes an illegal act," the June 15 ruling said. However, it dismissed the plaintiff's compensation claim over the article, saying, "The victim's mother has certain reasons for believing what she said."

In the course of the trial, Yahoo had argued that it was not liable for carrying the photo and article, saying that the newspaper company provided them with a guarantee that they would not infringe on the rights of third parties. However, the court disagreed, saying, "Yahoo failed to perform its duties not to publish a photo that infringes on someone's personal interests."

Attorney for the plaintiff Junichiro Hironaka praised the court decision, saying, "The ruling is of great significance in that it held Yahoo liable at a time when online news has become the mainstream, especially for young people."

A public relations official with Yahoo Japan said, "We will consider our response after reading the ruling."

Yoji Ochiai, a lawyer specialized in Internet-related lawsuits, said, "This is an extremely rare case in that a site operator was held legally liable for carrying an article and a photo provided by a newspaper company. In the United States, a site operator would not be held responsible in such a case unless it had malicious intentions, but there is no such legal structure in Japan. It therefore cannot be helped that a site operator be deemed to share its fate with a contributing newspaper company."

[matsuki]

In the United States, a site operator would not be held responsible in such a case unless it had malicious intentions, but there is no such legal structure in Japan.

fixed