Nagaizumi official dismissed for taking 20,000 public documents home

A 57-year-old female official at the Nagaizumi Town Board of Education in Shizuoka Prefecture has been dismissed from her position. The dismissal follows the discovery that she had been taking approximately 20,000 sheets of discarded public documents home without authorization for at least five years.

The official reportedly used about 12,000 of these sheets as scrap paper to print mystery novels she had borrowed from a library using the town’s copying machines. She admitted to the actions, stating she did not want to spend her own money on paper. The stolen documents, which filled roughly 50 cardboard boxes, included many works from the ‘Mitsuhiko Asami’ series.

In addition to the misappropriation of documents, the town confirmed the official had also improperly received 94,000 yen in commuting allowances over a 47-month period by failing to report changes in her commuting methods. The town stated that no personal information was leaked through the removal of the documents.