CHICAGO (AP) – Dennis Hastert will step before a federal judge Wednesday to learn his sentence in a hush-money case centered on accusations that the former U.S. House speaker sexually abused at least four students decades ago when he coached wrestling at an Illinois high school.
Hastert pleaded guilty last year to breaking banking law as he sought to pay $3.5 million to someone identified in court papers only as Individual A to conceal a dark secret from the Republican’s past. His plea deal suggested anything from probation to a maximum of six months behind bars.
But after prosecutors lifted a veil of secrecy from the case, the judge made comments suggesting he might impose a longer sentence, potentially putting Hastert behind bars for years, because of the abuse allegations.
Word that one of the accusers will speak at the sentencing hearing is sure to turn up the pressure on Judge Thomas M. Durkin to reject defense calls for probation and send the Illinois Republican to prison.
If that happens, Hastert, who was second in the line of succession to the presidency after the vice president and the nation’s longest-serving GOP speaker, would become one of the highest-ranking politicians in American history ever to be incarcerated.