Fake Royal Wedding?

[Taro Toporific]

[Big Booger]

This thread reminds me of that song by Billy Idol, "White Wedding"



Imagine all the people, showing up thinking they are attening a royal wedding and being duped.. And paying out the wazoo too.. Even some going as far as to pay for photos with the couple which they never received..

That is what probably got them busted.. people who wanted their photos complained to the po po.

[Taro Toporific]

Imagine all the people, showing up thinking they are attening a royal wedding and being duped.. And paying out the wazoo too.. Even some going as far as to pay for photos with the couple which they never received..

Man gets jail sentence over fake royal wedding in Japan

Associated Press 09/11/2006

TOKYO -- A court sentenced a Japanese man and woman to 26 months each in prison for falsely claiming that the man was of royal descent and staging a lavish wedding to collect gift money from unsuspecting guests, officials said Monday.

The Tokyo District Court found both Yasuyuki Kitano and his conspirator Harumi Sakamoto, who pretended to be his wife, guilty of fraud and sentenced them each to two years and two months in prison, a court official said.

The two, plus another man accused of conspiring in the scam, were arrested in 2003. The court said in a ruling that the three had swindled 2.94 million yen in gift money and a painting from 61 guests at the wedding reception in April 2003....more...

[Greji]

[B]were arrested in 2003.

Now here is an excellent example of J-justice hustling right along. Individual purported to be someone he wasn't. Easily proven by family and kunaicho records. Intent to defraud shown by receipt of gifts and payments under the above guise.

A slam dunk with or without a confession. The lovely couple would have been making license plates in about a month in the states. In Japan it only takes three years and with that they still only got 26 months which will translate to from a year to eighteen months. I don't recall exactly but it seems to me like they had been picked up before on some relating to impersonation of desendents of the Arisugawa line.

[kurohinge1]

About 360 people attended the event, and Kitano and Sakamoto were found guilty of taking 2.94 million yen in cash from 61 of the 137 guests who claimed damages.

. . . It is believed the impostor obtained information on the Arisugawa line from a public library in Kyoto Prefecture.

Kitano and Sakamoto first met in October 2002 and hatched the plan for the bogus wedding shortly after.

With help from Kusunoki, the couple sent out more than 2,000 invitations for the wedding that were titled Prince Arisugawa's Celebration Dinner Banquet.

The bogus wedding attracted guests including celebrities, a former member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly and members of a rightwing group in Tokyo.

According to the ruling, Kitano appeared at the ceremony formally dressed as an army general, complete with white gloves and medals on his chest. Sakamoto, the impostor bride, donned a traditional 12-layer kimono at one point.

The two also charged their guests 10,000 yen to have memorial photos taken with the couple. When the photo sessions did not prove popular, Sakamoto asked for an announcement to be made notifying guests about the service.

In an absurd twist, however, it appears the couple failed to do their homework on the financing for the wedding: Even though they bilked the guests out of more than 12 million yen in cash, the cost of the ceremony is believed to have exceeded their take.

Both Kitano and Sakamoto "still owe a part of the fees for the ceremony," according to the ruling . . . more