Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert molested at least four boys while he was a wrestling coach before he ran for public office.
Prosecutors outlined his past behavior on Friday. Hastert is not charged with molestation because of the statute of limitations, but instead is facing sentencing in the case involving his violations of the Patriot Act to pay off the family member of a victim.
According to a court filing by prosecutors late Friday laying out their sentencing considerations, Mr. Hastert, a popular coach in a small Illinois town in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, gave one boy a massage in the locker room, then performed an unspecified sex act on him. Another boy, Stephen Reinboldt, who died in 1995, was sexually abused by Mr. Hastert throughout high school in the late 1960s and early 1970s, his sister and others told the prosecutors. And prosecutors said Mr. Hastert had massaged another boy’s groin area after asking the boy to stay in his hotel room during a wrestling camp.
“Defendant used his position of trust as a teacher and coach to touch a child’s genitals and then undress and ask the child for a back massage in a motel room,” the prosecutors wrote of that incident. “There is no ambiguity; defendant sexually abused Individual A.”
Prosecutors said Mr. Hastert’s life had been “marred by stunning hypocrisy.”
Stunning hubris, more like. After molesting these boys, he chose to run for public office, become very rich because of his position, was a key player in the monkey court to impeach President Bill Clinton, and then violated the law again and again to pay hush money.
The full prosecutor's statement is here.
Hastert will probably get six months or so for his money laundering efforts. But there's a special place in hell for people like him, and he will reside there for a very long time.
