On January 21, 2014, Ms Machiko NEYA, an office clerk of Kurashiki Minshu Shokokai* (aka Kurashiki Minsho) was arrested on suspicion of tax evasion accomplice. Since then, she was detained for 428 days. On February 10, she was charged with aiding and abetting tax evasion. On February 13, she was rearrested on suspicion of violating Licensed Tax Accountant Act, and charged on March 5.
*Minshu Shokokai : Democratic Society of Commerce and Industry
On March 3, 2017, Okayama District Court rendered the conviction after unfair control of court proceedings favoring the prosecutors such that it adopted all the prosecutors' witnesses while rejected almost all the witnesses submitted by the defense team. Only one witness was adopted for the defense. Ms Neya and her defense team immediately made an appeal to the higher court.
On January 12, 2018, Hiroshima High Court Okayama Branch passed judgment to reverse the conviction of Okayama District Court and to send the trial back to the said district court.
5 years have passed after the case was sent back to the District Court, but no trial have been held. This is because the prosecutors failed to provide their plan to establish Ms Neya's guilt. Under ordinary circumstances, this plan should have been established when they brought the indictment in court 9 years ago.
At the end of November 2022, the Okayama District Public Prosecutors Office submitted the change of the cause, by reducing the alleged amount of tax evasion. However, the conviction for the main offender had been final and binding 9 years before. The enforceability of the change appears highly questionable. Anyway, the prosecutors themselves showed how floppy were their initial investigations.