Hastert receives 15-month sentence
Former Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert is sentenced to 15 months in prison for a hush money scheme connected to sex abuse committed decades ago.
CHICAGO — Dennis Hastert, once among this nation’s most powerful politicians, was sentenced to 15 months in prison Wednesday for illegally structuring bank transactions in an effort to cover up his sexual abuse of young members of a wrestling team he coached decades ago.
In a hearing that was by turns harrowing and revelatory, Hastert publicly admitted for the first time to abusing his athletes, was confronted in emotional addresses by one of the former wrestlers and the sister of another, and faced a long, scathing rebuke from the judge. From House to court
Hastert, 74, who made an unlikely rise from beloved smalltown wrestling coach in Illinois to speaker of the House in Washington, sat slouched in a wheelchair in a federal courtroom here as a judge announced he was rejecting pleas for probation from Hastert’s lawyers, as well as prosecutors’ endorsement of a shorter prison stay.
While the sentencing hearing was, technically, about a violation of banking rules and regulations, the proceedings focused squarely on the underlying reason for Hastert’s puzzling bank withdrawals — his abuse of young wrestlers who had viewed him as a role model.
“The defendant is a serial child molester,” said Judge Thomas Durkin of U.S. District Court. He added, “Some actions can obliterate a lifetime of good works. Nothing is more stunning than having ‘serial child molester’ and ‘speaker of the House’ in the same sentence.”
Hastert was not charged with sexual abuse because statutes of limitation for acts in the 1960s and ’70s have run out; the judge noted pointedly that punishment for such a conviction would have been far worse.
Illegally structuring bank transactions to keep such abuse secret — the felony count to which Hastert pleaded guilty — carried a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Hastert, whose date to report to prison has yet to be set, was ordered to pay $250,000 in fines, never to contact his victims and to receive sex-offender treatment.
“If there’s a public shaming of the defendant because of the conduct he’s engaged in, so be it,” Durkin said. Courtroom apology
Hastert has had a series of ailments since last year, including a stroke, a bloodstream infection and a spinal infection — factors his lawyers and family members argued should be taken into account in the sentencing.
They urged the judge to consider all of his life and career, including his years of public service.
As Hastert prepared to address the judge, he used a walker to rise to his feet, but his voice was firm and clear.
“The thing I want to do today is say I’m sorry to those I hurt and misled,” said Hastert, whose grown sons were in the courtroom.
“I want to apologize to the boys I mistreated when I was their coach. What I did was wrong and I regret it.”