NAHA, Okinawa — A 23-year-old Air Force dependent was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison with forced labor for raping a sex shop worker in October 2007 in Okinawa City.
During earlier hearings at Naha District Court, Kevin Parks, the unemployed son of an Air Force nurse, claimed he followed the voice of a devil. He told the court the devil ordered him to bash the 22-year-old Okinawan woman in the face with a beer bottle and then dig his fingers into her mouth before raping her.
The defense had asked for a suspended sentence, claiming Parks, who admitted to abusing drugs, was in a state of diminished mental capacity. The prosecutor argued that Parks claimed to be guided by voices as an attempt to evade responsibility for the crime and asked for a five-year prison term.
Chief Judge Hiroyuki Yoshii said Thursday the court found Parks mentally competent to be held responsible for his action at the time he committed the crime.
Park’s defense attorney, Satoshi Kawamitsu, had contended his client had a bipolar mood disorder as diagnosed by U.S. Navy psychiatrists.
Yoshii said Parks drove a car, borrowed from his friend, around a district in the city, known as "Hooker Hill," with an empty wallet and the intent to have a sex with a sex parlor worker.
"The nature of the crime was vicious and self-centered," Yoshii said, adding that the victim suffered a great deal of humiliation.
He said the prison term wasn’t longer because the court considered the $5,000 payment Park’s family made to the victim and that he had no previous criminal record in Japan.
