Nozomu Sahashi

Sahashi came under scrutiny almost immediately after the collapse of Nova when court appointed administrators of the company allowed the media inside the president's luxury suite at Nova's administrative headquarters in Osaka to show "an example of (Sahashi) using the company to benefit himself."[8] The office, a 330-square-meter executive suite on the 20th floor, housed a red-carpeted reception room, private quarters including a dining room with a large-screen TV, a bathroom with sauna, a Japanese-style tea room and a room with a double bed. Sahashi immediately submitted a petition to a local court rebutting allegations that he had used company assets to benefit his own wealth and lifestyle.[9]

In February 2008, police announced they were investigating Sahashi for aggravated breach of trust for using his position to reap profits for his affiliated company, Ginganet, which he also controlled. Ginganet sold the TV-phone sets system to Nova in addition to leasing the Ginganet-managed server for the video-phone lessons. The investigation revealed that Ginganet had illicitly received around 500 million yen in profits from Nova for the use of the server. The bankruptcy administrator had also earlier noted that the price of the TV-telephone devices Ginganet charged Nova was unreasonably high, which could have resulted in Nova losing several billion yen.[10]

In June 2008 police also announced they were investigating Sahashi for possible embezzlement in the course of business for his ordering the transfer of the entire balance of a separately managed employee fund to a Nova business account to allow the payment of refunds to students. Sahashi, who owned the affiliate firm that handled the money transfer, did so in July 2007 to cover operating costs without the approval of employees. Nova employees had made monthly contributions from their pay to fund a mutual aid organization that covered the costs of business trips and occasions of congratulations or condolence. Rarely used, it had an accumulated balance of 300 million yen at the time of the transfer.[11]

On the same day that investigators raided Nova Kikaku's former headquarters, Sahashi along with former president and accounting manager of Nova Kikaku, Toshihiko Murata,[12] were arrested on June 24, 2008[13] and questioned about misappropriation of funds. While Sahashi acknowledged that the fund was under his control he denied any wrongdoing and on July 30, 2008 he announced his intention to plead "not guilty."[14] Murata, reputed to be Sahashi's right-hand man, reportedly admitted to allegations of embezzlement in the conduct of business.[15] On August 26, 2009 Sahashi was found guilty of embezzlement and sentenced to three and a half years of imprisonment with hard labor.[16] In December 2010 his sentenced was reduced to two years by the Osaka High Court.[17][18] He appealed against this conviction, but the appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court on December 19, 2012.[19]

News articles occasionally differ in the spelling/pronunciation of his last name. The confusion apparently began in 2002 when Nozomu Saruhashi became upset after seeing his name printed in an article phonetically rendered in katakana as サル ("saru"), which Saruhashi saw as deliberately emphasizing the first character in his name (猿), which means "monkey." The next day he announced to the staff that his surname was henceforth Sahashi.[1]