成功起訴日本街頭騙案

Recently NHK News reported the following:

街頭募金を装って不特定多数の人から現金をだまし取ったとして大阪市の男が起訴された事件で、最高裁判所は「個々の被害者や被害額は特定できなくても、詐欺の罪が成立する」という初めての判断を示し、無罪を主張していた男の上告を退けました。
大阪市のチラシ配布員の横井清一被告（３９）は、６年前、大量のアルバイトを雇い、難病の子どもを救うための募金だと偽って、大阪や京都、神戸などの路上で通行人からあわせておよそ２４８０万円をだまし取ったとして詐欺などの罪に問われました。横井被告は「被害者の数やそれぞれの被害金額が特定されておらず、詐欺に当たらない」と無罪を主張しましたが、１審と２審は懲役５年と罰金２００万円を言い渡していました。これについて最高裁判所第２小法廷の古田佑紀裁判長は、１９日までに決定を出し、「個々の被害者や被害金額は特定できなくても、金を集める方法や場所それに集めた金の総額などが特定できれば、全体を一体のものと考えることができる」と指摘して詐欺の罪に問えるという初めての判断を示し、横井被告の上告を退けました。街頭募金を装った詐欺は、被害者などの特定が難しく、詐欺の罪で立件されたのはこの事件が初めてでしたが、最高裁の決定は、善意を踏みにじる悪質な犯行に歯止めをかけるものとなりました。

Supreme Court had announced their first judgment that "Even if an individual victim and the cost of damage could not be specified, the crime of cheating could be established", and thus rejected the appeal from a man from Osaka City who previously had been prosecuted but pleaded not guilty to charges that he had been cheating cash from many unspecified people on the street by dressing up as soliciting donations.
Defendant Seiichi Yokoi (39) had been engaged in handbills distribution in Osaka City, and six years ago he employed a large number of part-time workers and pretended that he was doing fund-raising to save children suffering from intractable diseases, and he cheated passers-by of about 24.8 million yen in streets in Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe, and was thus accused of cheating.The first and the second judgment had handed down 5 years of penal servitude plus penalty of two million yen although defendant Yokoi pleaded innocence, claiming that "Neither the number nor the individual amount of money damage to a victim could be specified, and thus it could not be taken as cheating". Presiding Judge Furuta of the second small court of the Supreme Court would give a court sentence on the 19th. It was the first time that cheating was able to be proved by pointing out that "As for the argument that both an individual victim and the amount of money damage cannot not be specified, if the total amount of money collected in this method, and the place to deflect the collected money can be specified generally, it is possible to think the whole activity as an integral one", and based on such reasoning defendant Yokoi's appeal was rejected. Although it was difficult to specify the victim etc. , and that the cheating was dressed up as soliciting charity contributions on the street, the supreme court now built up a case for the first time and put a brake on criminal conducts that trampled down people's good intentions.

It seems that the Supreme Court in Japan could apply their laws flexibly to deal with new kinds of cheating that might use legal loopholes to avoid prosecution.