Former House speaker Dennis Hastert was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison on Wednesday for a hush money scheme after an emotional court hearing in which he admitted to abusing underage boys during his years as a high school teacher and wrestling coach.
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Hastert, the longest-serving Republican House speaker in history and a successful global lobbyist, last October pleaded guilty to structuring, which is withdrawing a large sum of money in small increments to avoid detection. He also faces sex offender treatment, two years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine that’ll go to a crime victims fund.
A federal judge has described Dennis Hastert as a “serial child molester” as he prepares to issue a sentence in the former U.S. House speaker’s hush-money case.
Before the sentencing Wednesday, Scott Cross, a 53-year-old Chicago businessman, described the abuse he endured in a locker room with Hastert years earlier.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of IL released a statement after Hastert’s sentencing.
Hastert pleaded guilty in October to violating bank laws in connection with paying out hush money over the years allegedly to one of his victims, and in April his defense team made a filing publicly acknowledging the “harm” he caused to “others” for “misconduct that occurred decades ago”. Statutes of limitations have long passed on the sexual crimes, so he was only charged with breaking financial laws.
Prosecutors charge Hastert manhandled five young men while he was working in Yorkville, a suburb of Chicago, somewhere around 1965 and 1981.
The case hinged on the testimony of Scott Cross, a former Yorkville High School wrestling student and one of Hastert’s accusers. “I tried to figure out why Coach Hastert had singled me out”, Scott Cross said. Prosecutors say it was hush money to hide past sexual abuse.
On Wednesday, the judge returned to that example, saying that Hastert was willing to send an innocent man to prison to avoid getting caught. His attorney requested probation, claiming the 74-year-old was “deeply ashamed” of his actions and in poor health. “But instead Hastert removed the wrestler’s trousers and performed “a sexual act” on him, according to the court filing”. Hastert, the filing said, responded that it had been “a confusing and hard time in his life”. The man, who has not been identified, received $1.7 million before federal authorities caught wind of Hastert’s banking activity. “Tell the truth”, she said. “They looked to me and I took advantage of them”.
Block said the sentence should take into account that Hastert “continues to deny what should now be obvious to everyone”, that the payments were to hide sexual abuse. “I felt terribly alone”, Cross, who is called Individual D in court papers, testified.
The complaint identifies the victim as “James Doe”, who says Hastert breached a private settlement agreement for $3.5 million in exchange for the his silence.
If that happens, Hastert would become one of the highest-ranking politicians in American history ever to be incarcerated.
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Reinboldt died in 1995, but not before he told his sister a secret that had torn him up for years: Hastert had abused him all through high school.
