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Clergyman sentenced to 20 years for sexually assaulting 7 girls
KYOTO–A clergyman was sentenced to 20 years in prison Tuesday for repeatedly sexually assaulting seven girls after warning them that they would suffer forever in hell if they resisted.
The Kyoto District Court found Tamotsu Kin, 62, guilty of raping or attempting to rape the girls on 22 occasions between March 2001 and September 2004.
The girls, who ranged in age from 12 to 16, were members of Kin’s congregation at the Central Church of Holy God in Yawata, Kyoto Prefecture.
“The defendant habitually repeated the crime by abusing his position as a principal clergyman, whom the victims had seen as an existence close to God,” Presiding Judge Takeshi Uegaki said. “It is of a malicious nature almost previously unseen in other sexual offenses.”
Kin, a Japan-born South Korean who goes by the name of Tamotsu Nagata, pleaded no contest to the charges.
But his defense team argued that it was debatable that Kin had put his victims in such a fearful state of mind that they were incapable of resisting him. Those charges were applied to the cases in which the victims were 13 years of age or older.
The court rejected the defense team’s arguments and handed down the 20-year sentence sought by prosecutors.
According to the ruling, Kin repeatedly raped girls through violence or intimidation on five occasions, raped girls on 16 occasions after depriving them of their mental capacity to resist him, and attempted to rape on one occasion. The assaults took place in his office at the church or in his home in Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, the ruling said.
On May 10, 2003, Kin raped a 14-year-old girl in his office at the church after threatening her that she would go suffer an eternity in hell if she did not obey his instructions, the ruling said, adding that he had put her in an emotional state in which she was too afraid to resist.
The judge also pointed out that Kin’s sermons were full of intimidating remarks, such as, “You’ll go to hell if you resist.”
The victims attended the church with their mother and others, and their lives were centered on the religion that Kin preached. They regarded the defendant as a servant of God and felt it was impossible to reject Kin’s demands, the ruling said.
“To go against the defendant meant going against God, and they (the victims) had believed that they could not receive the blessing of God and would go to a horrible hell if they were disobedient,” Judge Uegaki said.
Upon sentencing, the judge noted that Kin’s pursuit of personal pleasure has left emotional scars on his victims inflicted by someone they once respected.
As for Kin’s failure to apologize for his actions, the judge said, “The defendant has not understood the victims’ sufferings.”
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