Police and prosecutors believe a wealthy Newport Coast resident being arraigned this morning is the dirty diaper dumper of North Coast Highway.
Tomoo Kawai, 68, faces a misdemeanor count of disposing of prohibited material–which in this case would be soiled adult diapers that have polluted the thoroughfare between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach for months.
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Since the crap pads have been found in the jurisdictions of the Newport Beach and Laguna Beach police departments, each agency had been conducting their own investigations. A bag of dirty diapers found on the Laguna side in September included an envelope from a Fullerton medical complex that led the police departments to join forces and set up surveillance of Kawai's Newport Coast home.
Dirty Diapers Raise Stink in Corona del Mar
A Lexus or Bentley Kawai would drive away from his home was followed, leading to his being pulled over in Irvine Cove one evening, when a bag of dirty diapers was found on his passenger seat, according to police.
Kawai is scheduled to be arraigned today at Harbor Justice Center in Newport Beach. His connection to the medical complex has not yet been revealed by authorities, but a Tomoo Kawai is identified online as an administrator with the Dr. Sharon K. Kawai, MD practice of Fullerton.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.