Japanese “Sugar Baby” Gets Reduced Prison Term

Nagoya, Sept. 30 (Jiji Press)--A Japanese high court on Monday reduced the prison term for a woman from nine years to eight years and six months for exploiting romantic feelings to defraud men out of money and selling a related manual.

Mihoko Tanabe, presiding judge at Nagoya High Court, also sentenced the 26-year-old “sugar baby,” Mai Watanabe, who called herself an “itadaki joshi,” to a fine of 8 million yen, unchanged from a lower court ruling.

The reduction in her prison term came as the defendant, following the lower court ruling, again expressed her intention to apologize to the victims, Tanabe said.

According to the ruling, Watanabe defrauded three men in their 50s whom she met via dating apps out of about 155.8 million yen between 2021 and 2023.

She also sold a manual she called a “textbook for itadaki joshi” to a woman in 2022, helping her fraudulently earn some 10 million yen. In addition, Watanabe evaded about 40 million yen in income taxes over two years.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]