Hastert, victim reach deal in civil lawsuit
YORKVILLE, Ill. — Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and a man who accused him of child sexual abuse reached a tentative
out-of-court settlement Wednesday over Hastert’s refusal to pay the man $1.8 million — the outstanding balance in hush money that the Illinois Republican agreed to pay the man in 2010.
Lawyers would not release details of the settlement, arrived at just days before a civil trial in the case was set to start. It would have focused on a novel legal issue about whether Hastert’s verbal agreement to pay $3.5 million to buy the silence of a man he abused as a teenager amounted to a legally binding contract.
The breach of contract lawsuit was filed in 2016 in Illinois court in Yorkville.
Federal prosecutors said during a related criminal case that sent Hastert to prison for over a year that the agreement was voluntarily entered into and that the victim never sought to blackmail Hastert. The abuse happened when the victim was a high school wrestler and the now 79-yearold Hastert was his coach.
Hastert paid $1.7 million over four years but stopped the payments after the FBI questioned him in 2014 about illegally concealing huge cash withdraws from his bank. After Hastert pleaded guilty to a banking charge and was sentenced in 2016, the victim sued for breach of contract to force Hastert to pay the outstanding $1.8 million.
Attorneys for both the plaintiff and Hastert declined to provide any settlement details, including whether Hastert agreed to pay the man and, if so, how much.
The sides planned to hammer out a written agreement over the next several days and notify the judge by Sept. 24 that it is completed, attorney Kristi Browne said.