Hastert paid off former pupil, official says

YORKVILLE, Ill. - The indictment of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert was triggered by his alleged effort to hide payments of hush money to a male student he allegedly sexually molested decades ago, a federal law enforcement official said Friday.

The indictment asserts that the acts Hastert wanted to conceal date back to a time when he was a teacher and wrestling coach in Illinois before entering politics in the early 1980s, the official said. Authorities said the victim, who has spoken with law enforcement officials, was one of Hastert's students.

Hastert, the longest-serving Republican speaker in House history, is not expected to face molestation charges because authorities don't think they have enough evidence to bring a case against him, the official said.

Also Friday, the Chicago Tribune reported that a top official, who would not be identified speaking about the federal charges, said investigators spoke with a second person who raised similar allegations that corroborated what the student said.

The second person was not being paid by Hastert, the official said.

A federal grand jury in Chicago on Thursday indicted the former speaker, 73, on charges that he violated banking laws in a bid to pay $3.5 million to an unnamed person to cover up "prior misconduct." The male victim is that person, the federal law enforcement official said.

The case has riveted and shocked Washington, where Hastert has been a high-paid lobbyist since his 2007 retirement from Congress.

"The Denny I served with worked hard on behalf of his constituents and the country. I'm shocked and saddened to learn of these reports," House Speaker John A. Boehner (R., Ohio) said in a statement released Friday.

Law enforcement officials said they, at first, didn't know what to make of a series of large cash withdrawals Hastert began making in 2010.

It was only after FBI agents interviewed Hastert in December, officials said, that investigators began piecing together the details. In that interview, the indictment said, Hastert lied to the agents, telling them he made the withdrawals because he didn't feel safe keeping his money in the banking system.

Actually, court documents said, Hastert was scheming to mask more than $950,000 in withdrawals from various accounts, in violation of federal banking laws that require the disclosure of large cash transactions.

Hastert has not spoken publicly about the case, and efforts to reach him have been unsuccessful. One of his sons, a Chicago lawyer, has not responded to requests for comment. No lawyer or representative has spoken out on Hastert's behalf, either.

If convicted of seeking to evade banking laws and lying to the FBI, the former House speaker could face up to 10 years in prison, prosecutors said.

From Washington to Yorkville, former Hastert associates were left stunned at the turn of events, calling and e-mailing each other to express confusion. They said they did not know where their former boss was holed up during the biggest crisis of his career.

"Anyone who knows Denny is shocked and confused" by the indictment, Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) said Friday.

He said Hastert should have "his day in court to address these very serious accusations," and called the case "a very troubling development."

Don Davidson, who taught history with Hastert at Yorkville Community High School between 1970 and 1977, said he was "astounded. . . . He was a good teacher, and he treated the students fairly."

Davidson, who also coached the basketball team at Yorkville, said he "never heard anything along those lines" about allegations of misconduct on the part of the former speaker.

The allegations have landed with near-universal disbelief in the small communities along the Fox River in northeast Illinois where Hastert grew up, worked, and lived for decades. While tract houses and strip malls continue to claim farmland here, about 50 miles west of Chicago, it's still a place where a slow-moving combine can slow a commute.