The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from film director Hideo Sakaki, 56, finalizing an eight-year prison sentence for sexual assault, the court's Second Petty Bench, presided over by Justice Kazumi Okamura, ruled in a decision dated Wednesday.
The bench dismissed Sakaki's claim that the encounters were consensual, saying only that his grounds for appeal did not qualify. All three judges hearing the case agreed.
Sakaki was charged with quasi-rape — a charge that applied where a victim was made unable to resist, whether psychologically or physically, and did not consent. The offense was revised into nonconsensual sexual intercourse and similar acts in 2023.
What the lower courts found
According to the first- and second-instance rulings, Sakaki exploited the power gap between a director and an actor to put two women, then in their 20s, in a state where they could not resist. He assaulted them a total of five times between 2015 and 2016 at an office and a hotel in Tokyo.
Sakaki is known for films including "Sute-gataki Hitobito" ("Unforgettable People"), released in 2014, which was nominated for the competition section of the Tokyo International Film Festival.
Allegations surfaced in 2022
Multiple actresses accused Sakaki in a weekly magazine in 2022 of forcing them into sexual acts, and sexual harm to actors became an industry-wide issue. The conviction covers assaults that took place years before those allegations were published, while Sakaki was working as a director.