Ex-Bay Stars catcher Yamane arrested for prostituting indebted woman

July 14, 2005

Former Bay Stars baseball club catcher Yoshinobu Yamane and eight other people have been arrested on suspicion of violating anti-prostitution laws by making a woman sell herself to a customer at a public bathhouse, police said.

Investigators said Yamane pressed the 23-year-old woman to pay back money she owed. He allegedly told her, "You can become a yakuza woman, or you can sell yourself at a soapland in (the red-light district of) Yoshiwara to earn money."

On about Dec. 16 last year, Yamane and others allegedly made the woman sell herself to a customer for 35,000 yen at an establishment in Tokyo's Taito-ku designated as a "special bathhouse."