Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert has arrived at a Minnesota prison to serve his 15-month sentence in a hush-money case involving revelations that he sexually abused at least four boys when he coached wrestling at an IL high school.
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Former House Speaker and “serial child molester” Dennis Hastert heads to prison Wednesday, about 40 years after sexually abusing teenage boys.
The media office at the Federal Bureau of Prisons was not immediately available for comment. Hastert will be placed in a facility where “a significant percentage of the prisoners” are sex offenders so that he won’t be singled out, U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin has said.
“When Dennis Hastert served as the nation’s longest-reigning Republican U.S. House speaker, he had a secure phone to the White House and could look upon the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial from the balcony of his posh Capitol office”.
Hastert wasn’t charged with child abuse because of statutes of limitation. The 74-year-old former congressman is in poor health and will be serving his sentence at the Rochester Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minn. Hastert almost died last year after suffering a stroke and being treated for a severe blood infection and undergoing surgery for a spinal infection, his lawyers said in court filings last year. It’s surrounded by razor-wire fencing and holds around 800 inmates from all security classifications.
Hastert is required to arrive at the facility by 2 p.m. local time today, though some other high profile inmates have chosen to arrive earlier in an attempt to avoid a crush of media attention.
Hastert must serve at least 85 percent of his sentence, or just over a year. “I looked up to coach Hastert”, 53-year-old Scott Cross said.
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Dan Rostenkowski, a powerful U.S. House member from IL who pleaded guilty to mail fraud in the 1990s, spent time at Rochester. He coached at Yorkville High School from 1965 to 1981. Once released, he will have two years’ supervised release.
