Female prosecutor says she experienced secondary victimization in rape case

Japan Times

21-05-2025

A female prosecutor in Osaka who was allegedly raped by her boss said she experienced secondary victimization when the prosecutors office where she worked turned a blind eye after she reported the case in 2024 and then when slanderous comments about her spread at work.
The criminal trial of Kentaro Kitagawa, a former chief at the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office, is ongoing at the Osaka District Court. He initially pleaded guilty but changed his plea to not guilty of sexually assaulting the woman.
At a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday, the female prosecutor, who is in her 50s and requested anonymity for privacy reasons, said her suffering was exacerbated when those close to Kitagawa and the organization refused to take appropriate actions following her report of the assault.
'I was stripped of my right to work, isolated within the organization, and left feeling a profound sense of despair — to the point that I wanted to die. I simply wanted to work in a safe environment,' she said.
'I pleaded to them, 'Don't make my family and myself suffer any more.' I asked them whether my death was the only way to be understood — but I received no response,' she said.
The incident occurred in 2018 when she was intoxicated at a party celebrating Kitagawa's appointment as chief Osaka district prosecutor. She was taken to Kitagawa's apartment after the party, where he allegedly raped her for hours. She said she had never met him outside of work before this.
When she tried to report the case to the Osaka High Public Prosecutors Office in 2019, Kitagawa allegedly threatened her in a handwritten letter, saying that if the issue became public, he would have no choice but to take his own life and that the prosecution office would face fierce criticism. He apologized to her in the letter and paid her ¥10 million as compensation.
After agonizing for years, she decided to file a formal report in February 2024 and returned the ¥10 million to Kitagawa, she said at the news conference.
But what made things worse, the female prosecutor said, was when one of her colleagues — a female assistant prosecutor — told everyone at work about her being sexually assaulted by Kitagawa, then spread defamatory remarks about her around the office.
She also said the assistant prosecutor lied to investigators that Kitagawa was the one who had been drunk rather than her.
The assistant prosecutor, who used to work as a secretary to Kitagawa when he was a chief prosecutor, also allegedly obstructed the investigation by deleting chat logs between Kitagawa and his attorney even though she was instructed by prosecutors at the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office not to do so.
The female prosecutor said the prosecutors office also did not restrict contact between Kitagawa and the assistant prosecutor, nor was their communication monitored, despite the risks of evidence tampering.
And despite her request for the office to reprimand the assistant prosecutor, no action was taken at the time. On March 19, the prosecution gave the assistant a formal reprimand, which is 'the lightest form of disciplinary action,' according to the female prosecutor.
After the incident, she was assigned to work in the same division and on the same floor as the assistant prosecutor.
'The prosecution's mission is to pursue the truth through thorough investigation and trial,' she said. 'The prosecution should have uncovered the truth impartially, even if the perpetrator was one of their own or someone with influence.'