May 29--Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert agreed to pay $3.5 million in apparent hush money to a longtime acquaintance, then lied to the FBI when asked about suspicious cash withdrawals from several banks, federal prosecutors alleged Thursday.
The stunning indictment of the longtime Republican powerhouse alleged he gave about $1.7 million in cash to the acquaintance, identified only as Individual A in the charges, to "compensate for and conceal (Hastert's) prior misconduct" against Individual A that had occurred years earlier.
Hastert, a former high school teacher and football and wrestling coach, was House speaker for eight years and has been working as a lobbyist in Washington since stepping down from office in 2007.
A woman who answered the phone at the former congressman's Yorkville consulting business, Hastert Associates, said Hastert told her to refer questions to his Washington lobbying firm Dickstein Shapiro. A spokesman for Dickstein Shapiro had no immediate comment.
Hastert, 73, of Plano, was charged with one count each of structuring currency transactions to evade Currency Transaction Reports and making a false statement to the FBI, according to the U.S. attorney's office. He will be arraigned later at U.S. District Court in downtown Chicago.
According to the seven-page indictment, Hastert withdrew a total of $1.7 million in cash from various bank accounts from 2010 to 2014 to give to Individual A. In December, Hastert began structuring the cash withdrawals in increments less than $10,000 to evade bank reporting requirements, the indictment said.
When questioned by the FBI about the withdrawals, Hastert lied and said the cash was for his own use, according to the charges.
"Yeah ... I kept the cash. That's what I'm doing," the indictment quoted Hastert as telling agents.
The indictment said that at the time the FBI interviewed Hastert, agents also were investigating the possibility that Hastert "was the victim of a criminal extortion related to, among other matters, his prior positions in government."
Further details of Hastert's alleged misconduct against Individual A were not provided in the indictment.
Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.
Hastert is co-leader of the Public Policy Political Law Practice at Dickstein Shapiro, according to his bio on the firm's website.
The longest-serving Republican House speaker in history, Hastert's term at the top was marred by controversy over the response of Republican leadership to a scandal involving improper advances toward underage male pages by then-Rep. Mark Foley of Florida.
In 2006, the House Ethics Committee found that Hastert and other leaders were "willfully ignorant" in responding to early warnings of the scandal but did not violate any House rules.
The Tribune previously reported that although the panel did not reprimand or otherwise sanction Hastert, it cast doubt on Hastert's public insistence that he was unaware of a complaint about inappropriate email messages Foley sent to a former page in 2005.
jmeisner@tribpub.com
