TOKYO — Once an icon for a new generation of Japanese go-go capitalists, fallen Internet mogul Takafumi Horie on Monday declared himself not guilty of accusations that he masterminded a scheme to falsify corporate earnings and inflate stock prices.
Speaking on the opening day of his trial, the brash entrepreneur called the case against him "full of malicious intent from the beginning" and said, "I have not carried out or instructed such crimes as were mentioned.
With his cropped hair, dark suit and blue tie a concession to the formality of the proceedings, he added, "It is regrettable that I have been indicted."
Horie's combative declaration of innocence was the opening shot in a circus-like trial involving his activities as head of Livedoor Inc. While there, he turned a $50,000 investment in a small Internet consulting company in 1996 into a network of media firms worth $6 billion by 2005.
The trial is expected to last three months.
Horie's legal troubles have been center stage in Japan all year. He was taken into custody in January during a police raid that was broadcast live on national TV. Horie was released from detention in April after posting bail.
His arrest sparked chaos on Japan's securities exchanges. The sell-off, known as the Livedoor Shock, took about $327 billion off the value of Tokyo Stock Exchange listings and swamped its computers with so many orders that it had to shut down trading.
The proceedings are widely seen here as a showdown between an upstart celebrity businessman who wore T-shirts to meetings and pushed the legal boundaries of securities trades, and a business establishment he mocked as stodgy.
The substance of the trial, however, is whether Horie conspired with four Livedoor executives to falsify its earnings and to inflate stock prices by launching takeover bids for a company Livedoor secretly owned.
Two Livedoor executives have already pleaded guilty to some of the charges and are expected to provide key testimony against their former boss.
Monday's court hearing was the 33-year-old Horie's first chance to rebut the prosecutors' case. His defense hinges on his ability to convince the court that he was not a party to, or aware of, the plans to deceive financial regulators and investors.
In the three months after Horie's arrest, with Livedoor executives held in solitary confinement, a series of statements were leaked to the media that impugned Horie's character and implied his guilt.
