Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert was sentenced Wednesday to 15 months in prison on charges of fraud and lying to federal agents in a case related to alleged sexual abuse.
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Just before the sentence was handed down, Hastert admitted for the first time that he sexually abused boys when he taught and coached at Yorkville High School in IL from the 1960s to the early 1980s.
He was also sentenced to two years of supervised release.
Reading from a prepared statement, Hastert told U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin that he acknowledged he “mistreated some of the athletes I coached”. When pressed by the judge, Mr. Hastert admitted sexually abusing the second victim, who has since died.
The 74-year-old, who was pushed into the courthouse in Chicago in a wheelchair, agreed to a plea deal that suggested anything from probation to a maximum of six months behind bars.
“I looked up to coach Hastert”, he said.
“I am deeply ashamed to be standing before you today”, he said.
Hastert made a series of large bank withdrawals and started to hand over the cash, where about $1.7 million changed hands.
The lead prosecutor said he wishes Hastert could have been charged with the abuse he was trying to cover up.
Still, he said he did not intend for Hastert’s punishment to be “a death sentence”.
His brother Tom Cross has been a political ally of Hastert as the former Illinois House GOP leader, and Hastert even asked him to submit a letter in his defense, but was rebuffed, according to the Trib.
Hastert did apologise to his victims during the hearing saying: “The thing I want to do today is say I’m sorry to those I hurt and misled”.
The longtime Republican lawmaker supported the Child Abuse Prevention and Enforcement Act of 2000 and called for stiffer penalties for sex offenders before his own pattern of abuse was revealed, reported the Chicago Tribune.
Fardon says “history would have told a lie” without the case and the victims’ testimony. “What you did was not misconduct, it was sexual abuse of a minor …”
The victim, previously identified in court documents only as “Individual D”, identified himself in court Wednesday to be 53-year-old Scott Cross. Struggling to hold back tears on Wednesday, Cross walked the courtroom through a chilling account of the abuse and the way the man he trusted fondled him on a locker room table, a situation Cross said he was manipulated into with a promise that a massage would help him lose weight to qualify for a match.
Hastert had been out on bail pending sentencing. A date hasn’t been set for the former speaker to report to prison as officials seek a federal facility that can handle the level of medical care he needs.
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In addition to the molestation, the victims described how Hastert would sit in a recliner chair in the locker room and watch the boys as they showered.
