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July 14, 2022

New York City restaurant magnate and Little Tokyo’s unofficial mayor, Shuji Bon Yagi, is facing a $95 million sexual assault lawsuit from a top executive at his restaurant group. 

Yagi, 73, has been accused by TIC Restaurant Group Vice President of Operations Nozomi Horikoshi, 51, of sexually assaulting her while she was unconscious. 

Horikoshi, who has been working at the company for nearly a decade, told the New York Post that Yagi took her to his West 58th Street apartment after a coworker’s birthday celebration. 

The woman said after the alleged Dec. 10 abuse, she woke up to the feeling ‘she had been penetrated’ and had 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.’ 

On Tuesday, Horikoshi filed a Supreme Court lawsuit demanding accountability 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 denied the allegations, saying through his lawyer that Horikoshi’s accusations are a cash grab and she is ‘claiming that a man who had his prostrate removed has raped her.’ 

Shuji Bon Yagi, 73, has been accused by Nozomi Horikoshi, 51, vice president of operations at TIC Restaurant Group,   of sexually assaulting her while she was unconscious

Horikoshi told the New York Post that Yagi took her to his West 58th Street apartment after a coworker’s birthday celebration

The lawsuit alleged that Yagi showed up unannounced at the birthday party of a female employee on the night of Dec. 10. 

The celebration was moved to a karaoke bar, and then another bar before people started going home. 

When a ‘quite drunk’ colleague left, Horikoshi claims Yagi took her to yet another bar, and then into a cab to his apartment around 2 a.m. 

The lawsuit argues that while they were in the cab, Yagi started to grab and touch her and tried to kiss her while she was heavily intoxicated. 

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 recalled waking up naked from the waist down and with Yagi on top of her. She said that, still disoriented, she called a cab and went to her home in Queens. 

Yagi has been dubbed the mayor of Japantown or Little Tokyo in publications featuring his many successful restaurants in the area. Yagi, who started his career as a dishwasher in Philadelphia, Penn., according to The New York Times, owns the thriving Rai Rai Ken, Curry-Ya and Otafuku, among others

Horikoshi said she attempted to confront her boss several times, but was repeatedly dismissed. 

Yagi reportedly tried to rationalize the abuse, telling her it was ‘mutual sexual consent, and that if [Horikoshi] could not consent he had made a mistake,’ the suit argues. 

It was also alleged that Yagi tried to use her position as her boss to discredit her accusations, Horikoshi said. 

‘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.’ 

Horikoshi is a vice president of operations at the TIC Restaurant Group, which is headquartered at 232 East Ninth Street

Yagi has been dubbed the mayor of Japantown or Little Tokyo in publications featuring his many successful restaurants in the area. 

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.’

Yagi, who started his career as a dishwasher in Philadelphia, Penn., according to The New York Times, owns the thriving Rai Rai Ken, Curry-Ya and Otafuku, among others. 

His attorney denied the allegations, adding that Horikoshi has financial motivations. 

‘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.’

DailyMail.com has reached out to lawyers for both Horikoshi and Yagi for comment.  

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