CHICAGO, Oct. 15 (UPI) — Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert will plead guilty to accusations of paying $3.5 million to conceal prior sexual misconduct.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin on Thursday set Hastert’s guilty plea for Oct. 28, with a written plea agreement to be submitted to Durkin by Monday.
An indictment released in May says Hastert, 73, paid an anonymous person identified as Individual A $3.5 million to silence illicit activities that Hastert engaged in when he was a high school teacher and wrestling coach between 1965 and 1981 in Yorkville, Ill.
The indictment does not explicitly state what Hastert did. Rather, federal law enforcement officials told the Chicago Tribune that Hastert paid to hide the fact that he sexually abused a Yorkville High School student.
In June, Hastert pleaded not guilty to refusing to report his monetary transactions and to feeding lies to the FBI. The current indictment also says he mapped out bank withdrawals in order to avoid raising red flags and lied about the transactions to the FBI. The withdrawals reportedly began in 2010 and were laid out in increments of $100,000 and $50,000. Hastert later decreased the withdrawals to less than $10,000 each to allegedly avoid reporting the money. Both the FBI and the IRS were involved in the investigation beginning in 2013.
Following that plea, a Montana woman named Jolene Burdge accused Hastert of molesting her brother Steve Reinboldt, who graduated from Yorkville and died in 1995.
It’s unclear whether Hastert will serve prison time in exchange for his plea deal.
