Hastert charged over alleged abuse payoffs
The former Republican speaker of the United States House of Representatives has been charged with paying US$3.5 million (NZ$4.9m) to cover up the alleged sexual assault of a student when he was a high school teacher.
Dennis Hastert, 73, who held the top post in Congress from 1999 to 2007, was a geography teacher and high school wrestling coach in Illinois at the time of the allegations.
Law enforcement sources allege that between 1965 and 1981 he had a sexual relationship with a male student.
In 2010, he is alleged to have agreed to pay US$3.5m to the man to keep the affair out of public view.
Although the statute of limitations has long since expired on the alleged abuse, Hastert, who is married with two children, ran foul of the law when he began withdrawing large sums of cash over a four-year period from 2010 to 2014 to pay his alleged victim, known as ‘‘Individual A’’ in the federal indictment.
When confronted late last year by FBI agents about the withdrawals, some as large as US$50,000, he responded that he did not trust the banking system.
The allegations of sexual abuse have shocked friends, allies and even political foes in Washington and his home state of Illinois.
Ironically, Hastert rose to power after sex scandals in the late 1990s. Newt Gingrich, who pursued impeachment for Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, resigned as speaker after the 1998 elections, in part because it was revealed he had a six-year affair with a Congress employee. Bob Livingston, a Louisiana congressman, dropped his bid to succeed Gingrich when he too admitted an extra-marital affair.
Hastert joined Congress in 1981 and went on to become the longest-serving Republican speaker in US history.
Since leaving office, he has been employed as a lobbyist, where a former official of his stature can earn as much as US$2m a year.
Since the allegations emerged last week, his name has been removed from academic buildings, plans for a statue have been scrapped and he has been forced to resign from numerous corporate boards.
Hastert is due Chicago next week.
in
court
in