Actress Serena Kozakura's conviction for willful destruction of property has been overturned by the Tokyo High Court because her large breasts revealed flaws in the testimony against her.
Reconstruction during an appeal hearing of the 38-year-old actress's alleged crime of breaking down the door in a man's apartment showed her breasts prevented her from climbing through a door as the man testified she had done, casting doubt on his reliability.
The high court overturned a district court ruling that found Kozakura guilty of willful destruction of property and sentenced her to 14 months in jail, though the sentence was suspended for three years.
Kozakura was delighted by the ruling.
"I lost work after being charged, but justice prevailed in the end," she said at a news conference she held in Tokyo after the conviction was overturned. "I was always worried about being a bit fat, but this time I was glad."
Kozakura was charged with having kicked down the door of a man's apartment after she had been kicked out following an argument with another woman there in November 2006. In July last year, the Tokyo District Court found her guilty of willful destruction of property, but she appealed against the conviction.
During the appeal hearing, the court heard testimony from the man and a witness who both said Kozakura had kicked a hole in the door, through which she wriggled through to re-enter the apartment.
The hole in the door was a rectangular shape 72 centimeters long by 22 centimeters wide. But Kozakura has a 101-centimeter bust and her breasts alone extend out 29 centimeters from her chest bone.
The appeal hearing conducted a reconstruction of the alleged crime and found that it would have been extremely difficult for Kozakura to squeeze through the hole in the door as witnesses testified she had. Further doubt was cast on the validity of the man's testimony because the clothes she had been wearing at the time of the incident were not damaged as they would have been had she gone through the hole, nor did her feet show any signs of marks that would have occurred had she kicked the door.
"There are considerable doubts about the man's testimony," Presiding Judge Kunio Harada said.
Kozakura got her break working as a presenter on a TV sales program before becoming a pin-up model and actress.
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