<figure id="attachment_470292" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 640px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-470292"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="becd6c75"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/06/be5e005141cee6eaa8da9c35da0a4f09.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-470292" class="wp-caption-text">A former coach who took advantage of a middle school student’s vulnerability to commit indecent acts against his former student faced trial</figcaption></figure>
<h2>A crime committed by exploiting a middle school student’s vulnerability</h2>
The trial of defendant Rei Yamagishi (23 at the time of arrest), who is charged with attempted non-consensual indecent acts and other offenses for coercing a male middle school student—a former pupil on a youth baseball team—into engaging in indecent acts, was held on May 28 at the Tokyo District Court.
According to the indictment, Yamagishi posed as a girl on social media, propositioned the male middle school student to exchange indecent images, had him send the images, and then used those images to blackmail him.
“The incident occurred in May 2023. Posing as a girl, Yamagishi threatened the middle school boy by using the obscene images as leverage, telling him, ‘Engage in lewd acts with a man between the ages of 18 and 25 and send me the footage,’ and manipulated him into approaching Yamagishi for advice. He exploited the relationship of trust between a youth baseball coach and a player, taking advantage of the middle schooler’s lack of judgment to commit the crime. &#8216;The defendant’s smartphone, seized at the time of his arrest, contained videos of lewd acts with at least 10 boys,&#8217;” said a reporter from the crime desk of a national newspaper.
Upon entering the courtroom, the defendant, Yamagishi, was dressed in an unseasonable outfit—a white fleece over a black suit—and his behavior was clearly erratic. He immediately complained of stomach pain to the judge and was escorted to the restroom. It was more than 10 minutes before he returned to the courtroom.
Once seated, Yamagishi leaned to one side, stretched his legs out in front of him, pressed a handkerchief to his mouth, and breathed heavily, gasping “Haah, haah.” His labored breathing echoed throughout the courtroom. When the prosecutor attempted to read the opening statement, Yamagishi complained of feeling unwell—saying things like “I want to drink some water and lie down”—as if to interrupt.
Amid this, the prosecutor read aloud the statement taken from the victim, revealing the nature of the relationship between the two and the circumstances of the crime. The following is the content of that statement.
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="The defendant’s utterly disrespectful behavior"></div>
<div class="expapp-yahoo-paragraph-break"></div>
<h2>&#8220;Sure. Do whatever you want.&#8221;</h2>
The defendant, Yamagishi, was the coach of the youth baseball team the male middle school student had belonged to when he was in the fifth grade of elementary school. Their relationship was reportedly good at the time, and the boy had even asked Yamagishi to come to his house to wake him up for morning practice. On one such occasion, Yamagishi touched the boy’s body, but when the boy asked him to stop, he did so, and their relationship continued afterward—including going out to eat together.
After entering junior high school, the boy met a girl—whom the defendant Yamagishi was impersonating on social media—and began exchanging messages with her. At first, it was just casual conversation, but when she asked, “Why don’t we send each other photos of our private parts?” (from the statement read by the prosecution; all text in 〈〉 below is from the same source), he actually sent a photo. He then claims he was threatened with, “If you don’t send me obscene photos with other men, I’ll spread the photos of your private parts.”
Faced with these threats, the male middle school student consulted Defendant Yamagishi. He was told, “If we send [the images], this will be over, so let’s send them together,” and he reportedly agreed to engage in lewd acts with Defendant Yamagishi. Threatening messages continued to arrive, and the male middle school student,
“I felt there was nothing I could do and was mentally cornered,”
consulted the police. This is how the incident came to light.
Cross-examination of the defendant is scheduled for the next court session. When the judge asked Yamagishi’s defense attorney how long the questioning would take, and the attorney confirmed the time, Yamagishi spat out, “Five hours.”
“At first, I wondered if he was genuinely unwell, but given his words and attitude, I realized he was just feigning illness. Normally, the defendant’s examination takes about 30 minutes. The defense attorney was speaking to Yamagishi in a low voice, trying to persuade him, but since Yamagishi displayed a dismissive attitude—as if to say, ‘Fine. Do whatever you want’—the defense attorney requested a recess,” said the reporter mentioned earlier.
When the hearing resumed 30 minutes later, the defense attorney stated,
“This is a case where the defendant’s guilt is in dispute. We need to present evidence from the seized cell phone, so we cannot cover everything during the defendant’s examination.”
However, when the presiding judge—noting that there is a possibility we will conduct the defendant’s examination at the next hearing—asked again how long the examination would take, Defendant Yamagishi told his attorney, “72 hours.” The defense attorney looked up at the ceiling, took a deep breath, and said, “I will need to consult thoroughly with the defendant,” before the court adjourned.
Defendant Yamagishi displayed the height of disrespect, even going so far as to hurl insults that disrupted the proceedings. What arguments will he present during the defendant’s examination at the next hearing?

 A trial was held at the Tokyo District Court for a man charged with attempted indecent assault and other offenses for allegedly coercing a male junior high school student, a pupil on his youth baseball team, into performing lewd acts. Throughout the proceedings, the man displayed a disrespectful attitude and made a series of extremely self-centered remarks.

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