Federal prosecutors have confirmed that at least four boys, one of them who was 14 years old at the time, were abused by Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert while he was their high school wrestling coach, several decades ago. The investigation centered around his admitted agreement to pay millions of dollars to keep his victims from revealing the truth.
The court filing revealed that Hastert had agreed to pay $3.5 million “to compensate Individual A for sexual abuse of Individual A committed by defendant when Individual A was 14 years old and defendant was his wrestling coach.”
NPR reports:
“Prosecutors say Hastert told Individual A he would stay in Hastert’s room on a wrestling camp trip, while the other dozen or so boys stayed in another room. Hastert massaged Individual A’s groin area, according to information gathered from Individual A. In another account, Hastert gave a 14-year-old wrestler a massage and then performed an unspecified sexual act on him. Prosecutors also say that after a wrestling practice, one 17-year-old allegedly received a massage from Hastert, who told the boy it would help him cut weight, and then performed a sexual act on the boy. A fourth boy, Stephen Reinboldt, who died in 1995, was sexually abused by Hastert throughout high school from the late 1960s to early 1970s, Reinboldt’s sister told prosecutors. A fifth individual recalls a “very weird” experience after practice in which Hastert touched the individual’s genitals after taking Hastert’s offer to massage him, though the student isn’t sure whether Hastert’s action was intentional.”
Though Hastert cannot be charged with committing sexual abuse, due to the expiry of the statute of limitations, prosecutors hope to prosecute him for lying to federal authorities over his illegal structuring of cash withdrawals in order to pay off his victims. He had told agents that he was keeping the $1.7 million of hush money he withdrew from his bank account, of which “$952,000 was in mostly $9,000 increments withdrawn on 106 separate occasions.” He would have had to report transactions above $10,000.
74 year old Hastert was hospitalized after suffering a stroke soon after he pleaded guilty to the illegal cash withdrawals, late last year. Prosecutors note that despite Hastert’s apparent poor health, he can still receive medical treatment while in prison.
Hastert has since appologised, and “acknowledges that as a young man he committed transgressions for which he is profoundly sorry,” the former House Speaker’s attorney, Thomas Green said to CNN. “He earnestly apologizes to his former students, family, friends, previous constituents and all others affected by the harm his actions have caused.”
Hastert was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1980 to 1986, becoming the longest serving Republican speaker of the house for eight years between 1999 and 2007.
Sources: NPR, Forbes, CNN.
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