Actress Sakai arrested over drugs, admits to allegations+

TOKYO, Aug. 8 Kyodo -
Actress Noriko Sakai, who has gained popularity in Taiwan, Hong Kong and
mainland China, was arrested Saturday on suspicion of possessing stimulants
after she appeared at a Tokyo police facility.
Sakai has admitted to the allegations, according to the Metropolitan Police
Department. ''I don't remember stimulants being in my room. But if they were
there, it must be true,'' she was quoted by the police as saying.
Her surrender at a police facility in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward at around 7:55 p.m.
put an end to her disappearance following Monday's arrest of her husband for
alleged possession of amphetamines.
The Tokyo police obtained an arrest warrant for the 38-year-old former pop idol
Friday after finding a small quantity of drugs in her Tokyo apartment, where
she lives separately from her husband Yuichi Takaso, 41. The Tokyo police asked
Sakai through her lawyer to turn herself in.
Takaso, a self-proclaimed professional surfer, was arrested after a police
officer found a plastic bag containing stimulants in his underwear in Tokyo's
Shibuya district.
Sakai was summoned to the arrest site but refused a police request to go to a
police station on a voluntary basis and take a urine test.
Sakai and her 10-year-old son went missing after Takaso's arrest, but her son
was found safe at an acquaintance's home in Tokyo on Thursday. According to the
Tokyo police, Sakai asked the acquaintance to let her hear her son's voice
during a call she made from a public phone at an unidentified location
Wednesday.
According to investigative sources, Takaso told the police that Sakai was
involved in drugs. ''My wife took drugs,'' he was quoted as saying.
The Tokyo police found stimulants in Sakai's apartment in Tokyo's Minato Ward.
A device to administer stimulants was also seized and a sample found on it
matched her DNA, the sources said.
Takaso was quoted as telling the police that the drugs found in Sakai's
apartment were not his.
Sakai was found to have withdrawn cash from an automated teller machine and
bought underwear and other items at a mass retailer in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward,
shortly after disappearing following her husband's arrest, the sources said.
The television personality was believed to have headed to Yamanashi Prefecture
as signals from her mobile phone were picked up from an area around the town of
Minobu in the southern part of the prefecture Tuesday evening.
The Tokyo police sent investigators to Yamanashi to search for clues in
cooperation with the Yamanashi prefectural police.
In a statement released Saturday night after Sakai's arrest, Masahisa Aizawa,
president of Tokyo-based Sun Music Production Inc., urged her to cooperate with
the police and not to conceal anything.
Aizawa also apologized to Sakai's fans and other people for causing trouble and
anxiety.
With her arrest, Toyota Motor Corp. is considering terminating a TV commercial
contract with Sakai, company officials said.
Meanwhile, it was learned Saturday that Sakai's 30-year-old brother was
indicted for using drugs last month in Fukuoka Prefecture. He was arrested on
July 17 after testing positive in a urine test, according to investigative
sources.
Sakai, known by her nickname ''Nori-P,'' debuted in 1986 in a TV drama and
released her first record the next year. Her popularity expanded overseas in
the early 1990s to places such as mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
After marrying in 1998 and the birth of her son in 1999, Sakai appeared in
commercials and changed her image to that of a good mother in a happy family.
In 1993, Sakai appeared in an event promoting campaigns against drug abuse.
==Kyodo
2009-08-08 23:50:35