A University of Tokyo medical professor just stood up in court and admitted he took about ¥1.83 million in bribes that included soapland trips and nights at high-end hostess clubs.
Shinichi Sato, 63, from Todai’s Graduate School of Medicine, has already been nicknamed the “Begging Professor” in the Japanese press. At his first hearing at the Tokyo District Court on September 25, he pleaded guilty to receiving illicit entertainment on 28 separate occasions between March 2023 and August 2024.
The deal, according to the case, was simple. In exchange for the perks, Sato helped set up a “Social Cooperation Program” at the university to study whether cannabis-derived ingredients work on skin diseases. The money and the nights out came from Koichi Hikichi, 53, the former representative director of the Japan Cosmetic Association. Hikichi has already been convicted of bribery over the same scandal.
Sato did not start out confessing. At first he insisted the nights out were just “compensation for lectures.” Then he showed up in a suit, reversed himself, and told the judge there was “no mistake” in the indictment.
The trial wrapped the same day. Prosecutors want two years in prison and a confiscation surcharge of ¥1.83 million. His defense is asking for a suspended sentence. The verdict is set for October 22.
A lot of the sentencing fight comes down to whether Sato squeezed the entertainment out of Hikichi or just happily accepted it. In court, Sato said he never coerced anyone. He claimed Hikichi paid willingly because he wanted to cash in on the “Todai brand.”
Hikichi was sitting in the public gallery. Afterward he told reporters he thought, “What a liar.” His version is that Sato had the power to open or kill the program, flew into rages over small things, and threatened to scrap the whole project. “I was terrified,” Hikichi said. “When he invited me to eat, I couldn’t refuse.”
He also said Sato specifically wanted private rooms at the kind of ultra-exclusive restaurants usually reserved for corporate executives, then simply said “thank you” when the bill arrived.
To show how far it went, Hikichi showed reporters a photo from a mid-December 2023 year-end trip to a hot spring resort in Atami. The picture allegedly shows a grinning Sato stuffing tips into a pole dancer’s cleavage. Hikichi said Sato was “highly satisfied” having girls in underwear do private dances. That Atami trip alone cost more than ¥1 million for a group of about 15 people, and it was not even one of the 28 counts in the indictment. Hikichi added that plenty of other entertainment never made it into the charges.
The logistics were allegedly handled by Sato’s subordinate, 47-year-old former project associate professor Ayumi Yoshizaki, who has also been convicted. At his own trial in April, Yoshizaki admitted he directly demanded the entertainment from Hikichi and blamed it on “medical school culture.” He said he was too scared of Sato to push back. Anger the professor, he testified, and there would be no place left for him in Todai’s dermatology department.
So the prestigious medical school program, the cannabis-skincare research pitch, and the soapland receipts are all now sitting in the same court file, waiting on an October 22 verdict.