Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert reported to the Federal Medical Center prison in Rochester, Minnesota, on Wednesday, to begin serving his 15-month sentence.
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Prosecutors argued at trial that Hastert was attempting to pay off a man whom the congressman sexually abused while he was a teacher and wrestling coach at an IL high school in the 1960s and 1970s, before he entered politics.
“I want to apologize to the boys I mistreated when I was a coach”, he said.
Hastert was not charged with child abuse because statutes of limitation ran out.
It’s been a dramatic fall for Hastert from the the top of the Washington establishment. Hastert is one of the highest-ranking USA politicians to go to prison.
Hastert arrived two hours before his appointed prison deadline today at a correctional facility in Rochester, Minnesota.
Dennis Hastert was once second in line to the presidency…but in prison, he’ll be inmate number 47991-424.
The wheelchair-bound 74-year-old Hastert arrived around noon at the Rochester Federal Medical Center, partly wheeling himself into the complex between high, razor-wire fencing. A federal judge rejected his plea for probation. Durkin said he would have given him a longer sentence if it had not been for Hastert’s age and poor health. That wrestler is now suing Hastert for the rest of the money, $1.8 million, in Kendall County Court.
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“The [plea] deal states that Hastert ‘agreed to provide Individual A $3,500,000 in order to compensate for and keep confidential his prior misconduct against Individual A'”. The former speaker had until 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday to report to jail. He’ll trade in his street clothes for prison garb and be subject to psychological screening, the prison’s 133-page inmate-orientation guide says. He will be allowed a radio (with headphones), five books and two decks of playing cards, but personal computers are not allowed, according to the inmate orientation guide.
