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Dennis Hastert Is Sentenced to 15 Months, and Apologizes for Sex Abuse Dennis Hastert Sentenced to 15 Months, and Apologizes for Sex Abuse
(about 4 hours later)
CHICAGO — J. Dennis Hastert, once among this nation’s most powerful politicians, was sentenced to 15 months in prison on 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. CHICAGO — J. Dennis Hastert, once among the nation’s most powerful politicians, was sentenced on Wednesday to 15 months in prison 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.
Mr. Hastert, 74, who made an unlikely rise from beloved small-town wrestling coach in Illinois to speaker of the House in Washington, sat in a wheelchair in a federal courtroom here as a judge announced his fate. In a hearing that was by turns harrowing and revelatory, Mr. 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.
“The defendant is a serial child molester,” said Judge Thomas M. Durkin of Federal District Court in a tough rebuke of the former speaker before issuing his sentence. The judge added, “Nothing is more stunning than having ‘serial child molester’ and ‘speaker of the House’ in the same sentence.” Mr. Hastert, 74, who made an unlikely rise from beloved small-town 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 that he was rejecting pleas for probation from Mr. Hastert’s lawyers, as well as prosecutors’ endorsement of a shorter prison stay.
Judge Durkin pointed out the vulnerability of Mr. Hastert’s young victims, and said they had been damaged for years. “If there’s a public shaming of the defendant because of the conduct he’s engaged in, so be it,” he said. While the sentencing hearing was, technically, about a violation of banking rules and regulations, the proceedings focused squarely on the underlying reason for Mr. Hastert’s puzzling bank withdrawals — his abuse of young wrestlers who had viewed him as a role model.
Mr. Hastert has suffered a series of ailments in recent months including a stroke, a blood stream infection and a spinal infection. “There are no guarantees that the defendant won’t get sicker in prison,” the judge said. “There are no guarantees that he won’t get sicker at home.” “The defendant is a serial child molester,” said Judge Thomas M. Durkin of Federal District Court, as Mr. Hastert sat impassively, often staring downward, hands crossed on his lap. 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.”
He said he would recommend that Mr. Hastert be sent to a prison hospital. “This is not meant to be a death sentence,” he said. Mr. 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.
The felony count to which Mr. Hastert pleaded guilty carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. His lawyers had sought probation, and as part of a plea deal, prosecutors had said they would support a sentence of six months or less. The judge also imposed a $250,000 fine. Illegally structuring bank transactions to keep such abuse secret — the felony count to which Mr. Hastert pleaded guilty — carried a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
The sentence followed Mr. Hastert’s admission that he had molested members of his wrestling team, and his apology for the harm that he caused them. “The thing I want to do today is say I’m sorry,” Mr. Hastert said. Mr. 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.
That followed the tearful statement by one of his victims, who described being sexually abused as he lay on a locker room training table decades ago. “If there’s a public shaming of the defendant because of the conduct he’s engaged in, so be it,” Judge Durkin said.
“As a high school wrestler I looked up to Coach Hastert — he was a key figure in my life,” said the victim, Scott Cross, now a 53-year-old businessman in Chicago. Stopping once to compose himself, he said, “I felt intense pain, shame and guilt.” Mr. Hastert has had a series of illnesses since last year, including a stroke, a blood stream 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 the entire arc of his life and career, including his years of public service.
Mr. Cross said that he had gone years without speaking of what had happened, and that the experience had caused him lifelong trauma. “I’ve always felt that what Coach Hastert had done to me was my darkest secret,” he said, as Mr. Hastert looked on. As Mr. Hastert prepared to address the judge, he used a walker to rise to his feet, but his voice was firm and clear.
Mr. Cross, is the brother of a former Illinois House Republican leader, Tom Cross. Judge Durkin is the brother of another prominent Republican lawmaker in Illinois, Jim Durkin. “The thing I want to do today is say I’m sorry to those I hurt and misled,” said Mr. 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.”
Mr. Hastert’s fall from genial retired House speaker and hometown celebrity on the far edge of Chicago’s western suburbs was sudden and steep. Mr. Hastert’s remarks followed a tearful, halting statement from one of his victims, Scott Cross, a former wrestler, who had never before spoken publicly about his abuse and who said that he had not even been sure whether he could bring himself to make his statement now.
For decades, both in Washington and in Yorkville, where Mr. Hastert had coached the local high school wrestling team to state championship, he had a reputation for appearing down-to-earth and steady — with little hint of scandal. “As a high school wrestler I looked up to Coach Hastert — he was a key figure in my life,” said Mr. Cross, now 53 and a businessman who works in financial services in the Chicago area.
Mr. Hastert, who was first elected to Congress in 1986, found himself catapulted to speaker in 1999, in part, because he seemed to be a safe, agreeable option: The Republicans’ first choice, Robert L. Livingston of Louisiana, stepped away from the post even before he took it, acknowledging adulterous affairs in his past. From a podium just feet from Mr. Hastert’s wheelchair, Mr. Cross recalled abuse that occurred on a locker room training table when he was 17. “I felt intense pain, shame and guilt,” he said.
Mr. Hastert grew up delivering feed for his family’s farm supply business, and held onto his plain-speaking style long after he left teaching and coaching for a life in the state legislature in Illinois and then in Washington, before he became a high-paid lobbyist. “I’ve always thought of myself as a kid from the cornfields,” Mr. Hastert wrote in his 2004 memoir, “Speaker: Lessons from Forty Years in Coaching and Politics.” He said that he had gone years without speaking of what had happened, even to his parents and closest friends.
Mr. Hastert never appeared to shy away from the wrestling world he had built in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s as a coach at Yorkville High School, continuing to advocate for the sport in Congress and to hire former student wrestlers as his aides and advisers. “I’ve always felt that what Coach Hastert had done to me was my darkest secret,” Mr. Cross said.
Yet it was a former student wrestler, prosecutors say, who eventually would lead to Mr. Hastert’s downfall after a series of revelations that left many — even Mr. Hastert’s onetime assistant wrestling coach — stunned. Some wondered how the abuse could be kept secret in such a small town for so long. The revelation that Mr. Cross was among Mr. Hastert’s victims caused a ripple through Illinois’s Republican Party, where Mr. Hastert had gotten his political start and had been a political mentor to Mr. Cross’s brother, Tom Cross, a former state House Republican leader. Judge Durkin noted that Mr. Hastert had recently unsuccessfully sought a letter of support from Tom Cross.
Mr. Hastert was charged in May with lying to the F.B.I. and making cash withdrawals in a way designed to hide the fact that he was paying $3.5 million to a former wrestler for misconduct from years earlier. The former wrestler and family friend of Mr. Hastert, identified in documents as Individual A, told of abuse in a motel room during a wrestling camp trip when he was 14. Judge Durkin is the brother of another prominent lawmaker here, Jim Durkin, the Republican leader in the state House, and the judge had offered last year to recuse himself in the case.
Prosecutors said Individual A approached Mr. Hastert to talk about the incident years later, in about 2010, asking Mr. Hastert whether there had been other victims and whether he would pay Individual A for what he had done. The sister of another victim, Stephen Reinboldt, spoke directly to Mr. Hastert, describing lonely, isolated years Mr. Reinboldt spent after repeated abuse by Mr. Hastert in high school until his death of AIDS in 1995.
After the payments began, federal authorities took notice of large, unexplained withdrawals Mr. Hastert was making from his bank. When told that large withdrawals had to be reported, Mr. Hastert began drawing smaller sums, prosecutors say, to avoid notice. “You took his life, Mr. Hastert,” Jolene Burdge, the sister, said. “Not because he died of AIDS, but because you took his innocence and turned it against him.”
Federal investigators approached Mr. Hastert in late 2014, inquiring about the many withdrawals — he had paid Individual A some $1.7 million by then — and Mr. Hastert said he simply did not trust banks and was keeping the money in a safe place. Not long after, Mr. Hastert’s lawyer contacted officials with a different story, prosecutors say: Mr. Hastert was the victim of extortion by Individual A for false molestation accusations, the lawyer said. At one point, the judge stared down at Mr. Hastert from the bench, and questioned him about the victims, one by one.
But after recording conversations between Mr. Hastert and Individual A, the authorities concluded that there was no extortion. They found that Individual A had wanted to bring lawyers in to negotiate a formal settlement with Mr. Hastert, but that he had declined to involve anyone else. “You said you mistreated athletes. Did you sexually abuse Mr. Cross?” he asked.
Prosecutors say Individual A was not the only student molested. At least three other men — all former members of the team, as young as 14 — said they, too, had been abused. The acts included “touching of minors’ groin area and genitals or oral sex with a minor,” prosecutors said. One man, Stephen Reinboldt, told his sister, Jolene Burdge, of repeated incidents of abuse, all through high school; he died in 1995. “I don’t remember doing that, but I accept his statement,” Mr. Hastert replied.
Mr. Hastert has not been charged with sexual abuse, and prosecutors said the reported incidents were beyond the statutes of limitation. Still, Mr. Hastert’s lawyers have said he was “deeply sorry and apologizes for his misconduct that occurred decades ago and the resulting harm he caused to others.” “Did you sexually abuse Victim B?” Judge Durkin asked, referring to one of at least two other former wrestlers whose names have not been made public.
In the case of at least Mr. Cross, the former wrestler who testified on Wednesday, Mr. Hastert’s lawyers had said that he did not contest the allegations, but that “in all candor he has no current recollection of the episode.” Mr. Hastert paused. “Yes,” he said.
A long list of supporters — from Mr. Hastert’s wife Jean to Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader — sent letters of support for Mr. Hastert to Judge Durkin. “He doesn’t deserve what he is going through,” Mr. DeLay wrote. “How about Mr. Reinboldt – did you sexually abuse him?” Judge Durkin asked.
Other supporters included wrestling coaches, lawyers, former students and former law enforcement officials. Mr. Hastert’s brother, Dave, wrote that he feared Mr. Hastert would fall into depression, given his circumstances and the physical ailments that have left him in a wheelchair. “If it were me, I’d be wheeling that chair to the highway, and waiting for a semi,” his brother wrote. Mr. Hastert said that was “a different situation,” but eventually acknowledged the abuse.
“By any measure, appearing before this court to receive its sentence will be the most difficult day in Mr. Hastert’s life,” his lawyers wrote in a memo to the judge. “Mr. Hastert’s fall from grace has been swift and devastating.” Patrick Collins, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago who has handled corruption cases including that of former Gov. George Ryan, a Republican, said that it was unusual for a judge to veer so far from the sentencing guidelines, which recommended no prison time or up to six months.
Prosecutors have argued that a sentence for Mr. Hastert must balance Mr. Hastert’s years of public service with a need to “avoid a public perception that the powerful are treated differently than ordinary citizens when facing sentencing for a serious crime.” “It’s extraordinary that the case was on its face a cut-and-dry financial structuring case with the conduct acknowledged, but the sentencing was about everything, essentially, but the structuring,” Mr. Collins said.
Mr. Hastert’s history, the prosecutors have written, is “marred by stunning hypocrisy.” Mr. Hastert’s fall from genial retired House speaker and hometown celebrity was sudden and steep. For decades, both in Washington and in Yorkville, on the edge of Chicago’s western suburbs, where Mr. Hastert had coached the local high school wrestling team to state championship, he had a reputation for appearing down-to-earth and steady.
“While the defendant achieved great success, reaping all the benefits that went with it,’ they wrote, “these boys struggled, and all are still struggling now with what defendant did to them.” Mr. Hastert, who had served in the Illinois legislature and was then elected to Congress, found himself catapulted to speaker in 1999, in part because he seemed to be a safe, agreeable option. After leaving Congress, he went on to become a lobbyist.
He was charged last May with lying to the F.B.I. and making cash withdrawals in a way devised to hide the fact that he was paying $3.5 million to a former wrestler for misconduct.
The wrestler, whose name has not been revealed and who is identified in documents only as Individual A, told of abuse in a motel room during a wrestling camp trip when he was 14.
After the payments began, around 2010, the federal authorities took notice of large, unexplained withdrawals Mr. Hastert was making from his bank. When told that large withdrawals had to be reported, Mr. Hastert began drawing smaller sums, prosecutors say, to avoid notice.
The wrestler sued Mr. Hastert this week, saying he still owed him $1.8 million of their agreed-to settlement.
Before the hearing, a long list of supporters — from Mr. Hastert’s wife, Jean, to Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader — had sent letters to Judge Durkin. “He doesn’t deserve what he is going through,” Mr. DeLay wrote.
But for nearly 45 minutes on Wednesday, Judge Durkin held forth in a passionate, often contemptuous tone, with little interruption.
He said that Mr. Hastert had “manipulated” the F.B.I. and the United States attorney’s office, diverted their investigation and knowingly tried to “set up” Individual A, actions that were “intentional, thought out and desperate.”
The judge spoke broadly about child sexual abuse and the lifelong damage it inflicts. “Can you imagine the whispers, the finger-pointing, the sideways glances if you’re a 14-year-old boy and you accuse the town hero of molesting you?” he said.
He dismissed the defense’s arguments that Mr. Hastert was too old, frail or ill to be properly taken care of in a federal prison.
And he ended with a blunt synopsis. “This is a horrible case — a horrible set of circumstances, horrible for the defendant, horrible for the victims, horrible for our country,” he said. “I hope I never have to see a case like this again. Court adjourned.”