The head of the city assembly of Maizuru, a city in the north of Kyoto Prefecture, was fined for possession of child pornography. The fine was issued in 2019 but has only just come to light.
On January 6, Keiichi Tai announced his intention to resign as council speaker and assemblymember at a press conference held at Maizuru City Hall.
The 53-year-old, a member of Liberal Democratic Party and speaker for the municipal assembly in Maizuru, was fined ¥300,000 for violating the child pornography law. He had possessed four DVDs with content designated as child porn.
They were found at his home in August 2019. In November that year, local prosecutors issued a summary indictment. He did not report the court’s subsequent summary order to pay a fine. It has only now come to light thanks to reporting by a local newspaper.
Tai also works at a construction company. He was first elected to the municipal assembly in 2010 and won reelection in November 2022 (his fourth term). He then became speaker of the assembly last month.
The soon-to-be-former politico has professed his innocence, claiming he bought a pack of 20 DVDs online in 2009 (in order, as charmingly worded by the media, to “satisfy his sexual curiosity”), unaware that they contained content with children under 18. Police then found his name on a list of buyers when they investigated a seller.
Tai claims that he only “noticed” the child porn on the DVDs when police brought him in for questioning. He admitted possessing them and paid the fine.
Why, though, did he not disclose the indictment and fine? “The punishment was a private matter, and I had assumed that disclosure was not necessary,” he was quoted as saying. Because he had purchased the DVDs before his first election, he assumed he didn’t have to tell anyone — especially not the voters!
