Shuji Bon Yagi, the unofficial mayor of Little Tokyo in New York City, is facing a $95 million sexual assault lawsuit from a top executive at his restaurant group.
TIC Restaurant Group Vice President of Operations Nozomi Horikoshi, 51, has accused Yagi, 73, of sexually assaulting her while she was unconscious.
Horikoshi, who has worked with the firm for over a decade, claimed the New York Post that Yagi invited her to his West 58th Street residence following a coworker’s birthday party.
The woman said that following the alleged Dec. 10 abuse, she awoke with the sensation that “she had been penetrated” and bruises on the back of her head.
‘I woke up at his apartment and I wasn’t wearing anything,’ Horikoshi told the Post. ‘I realized I was naked from the waist down … that was so embarrassing.’
‘I was like what happened? I have to go home. I knew that something happened already. There was a feeling of shame.’
Horikoshi filed a Supreme Court complaint on Tuesday, demanding responsibility and $95 million in damages.
‘I want to move forward so he can understand my feeling that he hurt me and my family too,’ she said.
Yagi has rejected the charges, alleging through his lawyer that Horikoshi’s accusations are a sham and that she is ‘claiming that a man who had his prostrate removed raped her’.
According to the lawsuit, Yagi turned up uninvited to a female employee’s birthday celebration on the night of December 10.
Before people started heading home, the celebration was shifted to a karaoke bar, then another.
Horikoshi alleges that when a ‘very intoxicated’ colleague left, Yagi brought her to another pub and then into a cab to his apartment about 2 a.m.
According to the lawsuit, when they were in the cab, Yagi began to grab and touch her and attempted to kiss her while she was highly drunk.
The woman then ‘tried to push Yagi off her and told him to stop, but due to her level of intoxication, [the] plaintiff eventually lost consciousness inside the taxi,’ the suit read.
Horikoshi remembered waking up naked from the waist down and on top of Yagi. She said that, still disoriented, she called a cab and went to her home in Queens.
Horikoshi claimed she tried to approach her employer multiple times but was dismissed each time.
Yagi reportedly tried to rationalise the abuse, telling her it was ‘mutual sexual consent, and that if [Horikoshi] could not consent he had made a mistake,’ the suit argues.
Horikoshi further claimed that Yagi attempted to undermine her charges by using her position as her employer.
‘I have been working there for nine years and the more I talk to him, I start feeling lost,’ Horikoshi told the Post. ‘I trusted him. I totally lost the trust. I felt deceived … I felt like he was looking down on me, like I was invisible.’
Publications showcasing Yagi’s several prosperous eateries in the neighbourhood named him the mayor of Little Tokyo or Japantown.
His company’s web site describes him as a ‘trailblazer for Asian restaurants in the East Village and an ambassador of Japanese cuisine in New York.’
According to The New York Times, Yagi began his career as a dishwasher in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and now owns popular restaurants such as Rai Rai Ken, Curry-Ya, and Otafuku.
His counsel refuted the charges, saying Horikoshi is motivated by money.
‘The undisputed facts are that Nozomi got black-out drunk, fell on a sidewalk and smashed her head, and texted a friend the next day that she had no recollection of even being in Yagi’s apartment,’ attorney Louis Pechman told the Post.
‘Now she wants $300 million, claiming that a man who had his prostrate removed has raped her. There was never any sexual assault. Full stop.’