Thomson ReutersFormer U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert is surrounded by officers as he leaves federal court after pleading not guilty to federal charges of trying to hide large cash transactions and lying to the FBI in Chicago(Reuters) – A man who accused former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert of sexual abuse filed a lawsuit on Monday claiming the once powerful conservative politician owes him $1.8 million as a part of an agreement between them to compensate him for decades of pain and suffering.
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Prosecutors have said Hastert sexually abused five students while he was a wrestling coach at Yorkville High School during the 1970s, before he entered politics. The alleged victim says he received only $1.7 million of $3.5 million Hastert promised him to keep quiet, NPR’s David Schaper reports.
“For many years to follow, Plaintiff suffered severe panic attacks which led to periods of unemployment, career changes, bouts of depression, hospitalization and long-term psychiatric treatment”, the suit says. He alleges that when he met with Hastert decades later to confront him about what he had done, Hastert agreed to pay him $3.5 million to compensate for the “pain, suffering, and harm” he had caused.
It was the large payments from Hastert to Individual A starting around 2010 that led the authorities to begin investigating Hastert.
Individual C had just stepped out of a locker room shower when Hastert offered him a massage. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The man said Hastert sexually abused him in a motel room where he and Hastert were staying alone, adding that Hastert was a “trusted friend” of his family. Prosecutors did not recommend a specific sentence, but their reference to sexual abuse on almost every page of their 26-page sentencing memo strongly suggests they want notable prison time for Hastert.
According to federal prosecutors, however, Hastert and Individual A’s behavior were not consistent with an extortion plot and the agreement more closely resembled an out-of-court settlement. When the teen realized Hastert “was touching him in an inappropriate sexual way”, he jumped up, ran across the room and sat in a chair, the court papers said. “Defendant then performed a sexual act on Individual D”. But when his towel came off, Hastert brushed his hand against the boy’s genitals.
Two of the accusers are expected to testify at his upcoming sentencing hearing. She spoke previously to The Associated Press and other media organizations, saying that her brother told her about Hastert’s conduct before his death. The fifth is a man who died in 1995, is named.
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“They didn’t give us the courtesy of a response”, she said.
