Prosecutors say Hastert agreed to pay $3.5 million to a man he sexually abused when the man was a 14-year-old wrestler on Hastert’s team.
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“He regrets that he resorted to structuring the withdrawal of his money from banks in an effort to prevent the disclosure of that misconduct”. An alleged sex abuse victim could testify at the sentencing hearing, the Associated Press has reported.
Hastert made 15 withdrawals of $50,000 – for a total of $750,000 – from 2010 to 2012.
Court filings have shown that Hastert agreed to pay one of his victims, who was aged 14 at the time of the abuse, 3.5 million dollars, reports the Guardian.
Four of the victims were wrestlers for Hastert at Yorkville High School, prosecutors said, while the fifth was an equipment manager for the wrestling team. Earlier this week, his lawyers also submitted a document that said Hastert was “profoundly sorry” for past actions, though his apology lacked specifics.
In another revelation in Friday’s court filing, federal prosecutors state that a 14 year-old boy, known as “Individual B” in the court filing, told them that Hastert performed a sex act on him while massaging him on a table in the Yorkville High School locker room.
In another instance, Hastert allegedly massaged a boy’s groin area and singled him out to stay in his hotel room during a wrestling camp. The boy accused Hastert of telling him that one way to make his wrestling weight was to get a massage.
Hastert, 74, suffered a stroke last November while awaiting sentencing on charges he paid hush money to victims. They all struggled later in life even as Hastert rose to power in the Republican Party and eventually rose to be second in line to the presidency.
The court documents say Hastert sexually abused four wrestlers, including Stephen Reinboldt, whose sister has publicly said he told her about it before he died.
Hastert’s “history and characteristics are marred by stunning hypocrisy”, prosecutors wrote. The court filing details sexual abuse allegations involving five former students.
The statutes of limitation on the sexual misconduct allegations have expired, but prosecutors raised the alleged wrongdoing in their pre-sentencing memo ahead of Hastert’s scheduled sentencing later this month.
Previous year the former House Speaker was indicted for “withdrawing cash in increments of less than $10,000 to evade currency transaction reporting requirements because he wanted his agreement to compensate [an individual] to remain secret so as to cover up his past misconduct”. Wednesday’s filing asks for probation when Hastert is sentenced April 27.
The case has been shrouded in secrecy since the May 2015 indictment. The payments abruptly stopped late in 2014 after Federal Bureau of Investigation agents questioned Hastert about his cash withdrawals.
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Prosecutors say “Individual A’s tone and comments” during the conversations “were inconsistent with someone committing extortion”.
