Hastert was sentenced to more than a year in prison in the hush-money case that included accusations he sexually abused teenagers while coaching high school wrestling.
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But Hastert told investigators he withdrew the money to buy the silence of a man who claimed Hastert had victimized him sexually as a youth, when Hastert was a high school teacher and wrestling coach in IL.
Although the sentence Hastert received is more than double what even the prosecution recommended, it is far less severe than the 74-year-old Hastert could have received.
Scott Cross was on the varsity wrestling team at Yorkville High School when Hastert was a coach in the 1970s. In Judge Thomas Durkin’s federal district courtroom, Hastert admitted for the first time that he sexually abused student athletes while working as a teacher in IL.
Hastert, the judge said, thought he could use his elevated status to make federal investigators believe his lie.
In explaining his punishment, the judge called Hastert a “serial child molester” and described as “unconscionable” his attempt to accuse one of the victims of extortion.
Hastert also was ordered to pay $250,000 to a victims’ fund and sentenced to two years of supervised release once he finishes his prison term.
“I am deeply ashamed to be standing here”, he said, reading from a statement.
“They looked to me and I took advantage of them”, he added, according to comments reported by the Chicago Tribune.
How many teenage boys did Dennis Hastert sexually abuse?
“You tried to set him up”, Durkin said.
Hastert told investigators that Individual A was making a bogus claim of sex abuse to extort him for money. 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.
Hastert for the first time admitted to sexually abusing at least one teenage boy when asked directly by Durkin, but said he did not recall molesting Scott Cross, the younger brother of former Illinois House Republican leader Tom Cross, to whom Hastert was a political mentor. Cross said the memory still causes him pain, according to the AP.
Looking through eyeglasses at his written notes, the white-haired Hastert apologized for mistreating some of his athletes, but as in past apologies conveyed through his attorneys, he didn’t specify what it was he’d done.
In the years since he has sought professional help and has had trouble sleeping. Durkin said he acknowledges Hastert suffered a “catastrophic illness and is at risk for complications”, which Hastert’s defense team has said was a stroke that almost took his life.
Statutes of limitations have long passed on the sexual crimes, so he was only charged with breaking financial laws.
Some letters of support were withdrawn because the writers did not want to be identified, Green said, an example of Hastert’s deepening isolation.
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The former lawmaker was once third in line to the US presidency and the longest-serving Republican speaker in the country’s history.
