CHICAGO (USA TODAY) - Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert pleaded guilty Wednesday to lying to the FBI about illegally structured bank withdrawals that were part of an effort to pay hush money to someone for decades-old misconduct.
Under the plea agreement, federal prosecutor Steven Block recommended that Hastert, the longest serving GOP speaker in history, be sentenced to zero to six months in federal prison. Hastert pleaded guilty to one count in the indictment, which carries a maximum sentence is five years. A judge must sign off on the agreement. He will be sentenced Feb. 29.
But with the guilty plea, Hastert, 73, may be able to keep further embarrassing details about why, according to the federal prosecutors, he agreed to pay $3.5 million to an unidentified individual from Yorkville, Ill., the town where he worked as a high school teacher and wrestling coach before entering politics.
The indictment, unsealed nearly five months ago, referred to the alleged wrongdoing by Hastert as “prior misconduct” against someone identified as “Individual A" but did not offer any details. But federal law enforcement officials told USA TODAY that Hastert made illegally structured withdrawals as part of an effort to conceal sexual misconduct he committed against a male student decades earlier when he worked at Yorkville High School.
Hastert circumvented the federal requirement that requires banks to report withdrawals of more than $10,000. He was accused of withdrawing a total of $952,000 in increments under that threshold that were paid to the individual.
When the FBI asked about the withdrawals in December 2014, he allegedly lied and said he was keeping the cash, the indictment said.
At the time, agents asked if he was withdrawing the money because he did not feel safe with the banking system, Hastert allegedly responded, "Yeah . . . I kept the cash. That's what I'm doing."
The less-than-forthright answer appears to have helped lead to the fall of the politician who for nearly eight years was the third-highest ranking elected official in America.
In the months ahead of the guilty plea, the ex-speaker’s lead attorney, Thomas Green, complained to Judge Thomas Durkin that leaks to the media about the nature of the alleged misconduct had put his client in untenable position.
The leaks, Green grumbled, had become an “800-pound gorilla” in the case.
Before Wednesday’s hearing, Hastert, who was free on $4,500 bond, had managed to stay out the public eye in the months following the unsealing of the indictment in late May.
He resigned from a lucrative lobbyist position at the Washington firm Dickstein Shapiro, and stepped down from the board of directors of the Chicago options operator CME Group. His alma mater, Wheaton College, announced they were Hastert’s name from the school’s public center.
Following the announcement of the indictment, the sister of one of Hastert’s old wrestling team managers alleged was sexually abused by Hastert when he was a teen. Jolene Burdge of Billings, Mont., told ABC News that her brother, Steve Reinboldt, who died of AIDS in 1995, confided to her that he was the victim of four years of sexual abuse by Hastert.
And Mel Watt, a former Democrat House member who now heads the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said that years ago he heard an allegation of past sexual misconduct against the former House Speaker but did not pursue the matter.
Federal prosecutors have not divulged why “Individual A” decided to cooperate with them against Hastert.
