CHICAGO—Dennis Hastert agreed to pay $3.5 million to a person the former House speaker sexually abused when the victim was a 14-year-old wrestler on a team coached by Hastert, prosecutors said in a court filing that details allegations by five former students.
The filing Friday night is the first time prosecutors have confirmed Hastert paid hush-money to conceal sex abuse.
The filing recommends that a federal judge sentence Hastert to up to six months in prison for violating banking laws as he sought to pay one of his victims, identified in court documents as “Individual A,” to ensure the person kept quiet. The sex-abuse allegations date to Hastert’s time at Yorkville High School in the Chicago suburb of Yorkville from 1965 to 1981.
“While defendant achieved great success, reaping all the benefits that went with it, these boys struggled, and all are still struggling now with what defendant did to them. Some have managed better than others, but all of them carry the scars defendant inflicted upon them,” the filing says.
Prosecutors say the now-74-year-old Republican Hastert was still abusing boys when he first decided to run for office.
Individual A is one of at least four people cited in the filing as saying that Hastert sexually abused them as children. Three were wrestlers and the fourth was a student-manager on the team Hastert coached. Another wrestler said Hastert touched his genitals while he was on a locker room massage table, but he wasn’t sure if it was intentional.
Prosecutors say in the filing that Hastert’s known sexual acts against Individual A and other accusers consist of “intentional touching of minors’ groin area and genitals or oral sex with a minor.”
According to the document, Individual A told prosecutors the abuse occurred in a motel room on the way home from wrestling camp. Hastert, the only adult on the trip, told the 14-year-old that he would stay in his room while about a dozen other boys stayed in a different room. Individual A said Hastert touched him inappropriately after suggesting he would massage a groin injury the boy had.
The other former wrestlers told prosecutors Hastert touched them in the locker room at Yorkville High, after saying he would give them massages. Two of those wrestlers, who were ages 14 and 17, say Hastert performed sex acts on them.
Court records say Hastert managed to pay $1.7 million to Individual A — handing it over in lump sums of $100,000 cash — starting in 2010.
Days after pleading guilty, Hastert entered the hospital and nearly died from a blood infection, according to his lawyers. They also say he had a stroke and required in-home care.
