He pleaded guilty only to a financial crime previous year, but federal prosecutors used a damning 26-page sentencing memo this month to also accuse him of sexually abusing five students while a wrestling coach at Yorkville High School decades ago. The bureau’s investigators would come to find that Hastert, who worked as a high school teacher and wrestling coach in IL early in his career, had abused or inappropriately touched as many as five teenagers in his care decades ago.
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For years, Individual A “suffered severe panic attacks which lead to periods of unemployment, career changes, bouts of depression, hospitalization, and long-term psychiatric treatment”.
“Mr. Hastert feels deep regret and remorse for his actions decades ago and is prepared to accept the consequences”, defense attorney Thomas Green wrote in a plea to the court.
DeLay, a Texas Republican, recalled in his letter that Hastert started a Wednesday bible study that the two men took part in.
Vickery closes the letter by asking Durkin to consider a lesser sentence for Hastert that would keep him out of prison. He was taking out the funds to make payments to a man identified in court documents by federal prosecutors as Individual A. He says Hastert “acknowledged the life-long pain and suffering” he caused and “agreed to compensate Doe for the trauma he suffered as a result of the admitted sexual molestation and abuse”.
The news that so many of Hastert’s peers were standing by him turned him into a trending topic on Saturday.
Reinboldt’s sister claims her brother was a victim of Hastert’s abuse, and prosecutors agreed, writing: “Reinboldt was a victim and defendant was his abuser”.
The 60 letters were attached to a previous, sealed filing, which conceals the identities of individuals making a case for leniency on behalf of Hastert. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison. They talked Saturday about a government filing the day before that detailed allegations that he abused several former students.The allegations came to light after Hastert was convicted a year ago of illegally structuring bank withdrawals to pay off one of his victims in an effort to hide the abuse. Prosecutors portray the deal not as extortion but something akin to an out-of-court settlement.
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In her letter, Vickery says she has known Hastert for over 25 years and calls him “a good man with a generous heart”. Hastert, the papers said, “just stared at her and gave no verbal response before walking away”.
