Jury acquits former acupuncturist of 2019 sexual assault

A jury last week acquitted a retired Albuquerque acupuncturist of two felony sexual assault charges stemming from a 2019 allegation that he raped a patient during a treatment session.

Megumi Hirayama, 74, was found not guilty Thursday of one count each of criminal sexual penetration and criminal sexual contact, following a four-day trial in 2nd Judicial District Court before Judge Joseph Montano.

Jurors deliberated about half a day Thursday before returning the verdicts, said Christopher Dodd, Hirayama’s attorney.

Expert testimony on DNA evidence was decisive in the trail, Dodd said in a phone interview Friday. After the verdicts, court staff removed the GPS monitoring device that Hirayama had worn since 2019.

Dodd also criticized the Albuquerque police, prosecutors and the media for “subjecting (Hirayama) to a disgusting and dehumanizing perp walk” at the time of his arrest in January 2019.

Hirayama is now retired, Dodd said.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit filed in Metropolitan Court, a woman told police in August 2018 that Hirayama digitally penetrated her during an acupuncture treatment session at the now-shuttered Zen Japanese Acupuncture on Montgomery NE near Jefferson.

The woman called police the following day, when detectives collected DNA evidence from the woman’s underwear, the affidavit said. Hirayama’s DNA was found on the woman’s underwear, it said. Hirayama denied touching the woman inappropriately.

Dodd said testimony from DNA experts was a key factor in Hirayama’s acquittal. Although Hirayama’s DNA was found on the outside of the woman’s underwear, none was found on the inside, undercutting the prosecution’s allegation that the woman had been raped, he said.