Woman gets 20 months in prison for loud music

USATODAY.COM: A Japanese woman whose loud rock music "inflicted injury" on a neighbor for more than two years will spend the next 20 months in prison.

Miyoko Kawahara, 59, "was accused of causing insomnia and headaches to her next-door neighbor by playing loud dance music almost 24 hours a day on a portable stereo she had pointed at her neighbor's house, 20 feet away," the Associated Press reports from Japan.

The Mainichi newspaper says Kawahara was convicted of attempting "to worsen a 65-year-old neighbor's high blood pressure."

Noting that Kawahara ignored local authorities who ordered her to turn down the music, the judge said Kawahara "still maintains a hostile attitude toward the victim and it is highly likely she will commit the crime again," according to Kyodo news.

She could have been sentenced to 10 years in prison.