Former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert pleaded guilty Wednesday to lying to the FBI about $3.5 million in hush money that he secretly tried to pay to a person in order to cover up past “misconduct.”
Federal sentencing guidelines recommend that the Illinois Republican serve between zero and six months in prison for the offense, though a judge could hand down a sentence of up to five years.
As a result of his plea, prosecutors were expected to drop an additional charge that Hastert violated federal banking laws.
Few details about the misconduct that prosecutors said Hastert was attempting to cover up have been publicly released, and Wednesday’s plea hearing in Chicago shed little new light on the matter.
The misconduct dates back to the time Hastert was a teacher and wrestling coach at an Illinois high school. Hastert taught at Yorkville High School from 1965 to 1981 before entering politics.
The Associated Press and other media outlets have reported that the money was intended to keep quiet allegations of sexual abuse by the former House speaker. The identity of the person to whom the 73-year-old Hastert paid $1.7 million to over a four-year period has not been made public.
PHOTOS: Former House Speaker Hastert pleads guilty to lying to FBI
One woman, Jolene Burdge, has come forward to tell multiple news outlets that Hastert sexually molested her brother when he was a student at the school, but that her brother died in 1995 before any of the cash payments were made.
In a brief written statement to the court, Hastert said that he structured his bank withdrawals in a way that they would not be detected.
He explained why he lied to the FBI by saying, “I didn’t want them to know how I intended to spend the money.”
U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin asked Hastert, “Did you know that what you were doing was wrong?”
He responded, “Yes, sir.”
According to his plea agreement, beginning in 2010, Hastert and the person he was paying off would meet at pre-arranged times and locations every six weeks, and the former speaker would turn over $50,000 each time. After being questioned by bank officials about large cash withdrawals, Hastert began making smaller withdrawals of less than $10,000 from 2012 through 2014 to avoid additional scrutiny.
After he was interviewed by the FBI about the reason for the withdrawals, Hastert stopped taking cash out of his accounts entirely, the plea agreement states.
Hastert served two decades in the House and was speaker from 1999 through 2007, notching the longest tenure of any Republican speaker in history. He stepped down after overseeing a disastrous election for House Republicans in 2006, and led the lobbying arm of Dickstein Shapiro LLP, a Washington law firm, until he resigned after being criminally charged in this case.
Hastert is expected to be sentenced on Feb. 29 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
In a statement released Wednesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois indicated that officials would be providing the court with “relevant information about the defendant’s background and the charged offenses.”
It was unclear whether that meant further details about the former speaker’s hush-money scheme might be revealed at sentencing.
⦁ This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Andrea Noble can be reached at anoble@washingtontimes.com.
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