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Whose following this Dennis Hastert case? He was the speaker of the house from 99 to 2007 but he started as a teacher/wrestling coach in Chicago. Turns out, he is a child molester and 4 people have came out over the years against him. He even had a lazy boy chair set up in boys shower. His claims are that it was so the boys didn't fight in the shower. Few years ago one of his victims whose an adult now hit him up like 
and Dennis apologized and agreed to pay him off. That's how this guy Dennis got caught because he took out 1.3 million over a few years and the banks were watching him. This guy had a huge rise to power very quickly, how you go from gym teacher to speaker of the house? You know how? Blackmail. If they got dirt on you they will not only promote you but they try to protect you too. Same with music industry, compare Saigon to Rick Ross. If you follow political scandals, it's usually republicans that like little boys and democrats who get prostitutes.
and Dennis apologized and agreed to pay him off. That's how this guy Dennis got caught because he took out 1.3 million over a few years and the banks were watching him. This guy had a huge rise to power very quickly, how you go from gym teacher to speaker of the house? You know how? Blackmail. If they got dirt on you they will not only promote you but they try to protect you too. Same with music industry, compare Saigon to Rick Ross. If you follow political scandals, it's usually republicans that like little boys and democrats who get prostitutes. How the feds uncovered Dennis Hastert's sordid past
Jason Meisner , Jeff Coen and Christy GutowskiContact ReportersChicago Tribune
Approached by federal agents last year about dozens of large cash bank withdrawals, Dennis Hastert claimed he was being extorted by a former student who said Hastert had sexually abused him decades earlier when he was a high school teacher and wrestling coach.
The agents took the former U.S. House speaker at his word. But when they listened in on two phone conversations between Hastert and the man supposedly pressuring him to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, agents began to suspect the story was a lie.
What soon was apparent, according to an explosive document filed in the federal case against Hastert late Friday, was that instead of being forced to pay to keep false allegations from being spread, Hastert was paying to hide his sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy.
The document filed by federal prosecutors in advance of Hastert's April 27 sentencing provides a dramatic account of the fall of the man who once was second in line to the U.S. presidency, with the first details of how Hastert allegedly fondled young wrestlers who saw him as a mentor.
According to prosecutors, Hastert inappropriately touched the teenage boys in hotel rooms during team trips and in empty locker rooms, often coaxing them into a compromising position by offering to massage them. He allegedly performed a sex act on two wrestlers at separate times, and the filing quotes another saying Hastert set up a "Lazyboy" type of chair outside the locker room's showers in order to sit and watch the boys.
The document depicts a seemingly desperate Hastert trying to protect himself by shifting blame onto one of the former wrestlers, a claim that came undone when agents recording Hastert's phone calls with the man they came to call Individual A heard his voice for the first time.
They realized then that Hastert might be the criminal.
Hastert's attorneys have sought to portray him in advance of sentencing as a family man who gave great service to his country and, in his old age and in ill health, regrets unspecified indiscretions from decades ago. They have asked for probation for Hastert's money-structuring conviction.
Prosecutors, in their 26-page filing late Friday, offered a starkly different portrayal. Hastert, they said, had hidden the alleged sexual abuse of five young men for decades while rising in politics and, over time, amassing considerable wealth — while leaving his victims emotionally shattered.
"While defendant achieved great success, reaping all the benefits that went with it," prosecutors wrote, "these boys struggled, and all are still struggling now with what defendant did to them."
Prosecutors noted that Hastert could not be charged with sex crimes because the statute of limitations had long passed.
The Hastert investigation, according to the court filing, began in April 2012, when a bank compliance officer preparing for a routine exam unrelated to Hastert noticed a strange series of seven $50,000 cash withdrawals made from Hastert's account in Yorkville dating to 2010.
When a risk management officer spoke to Hastert about the withdrawals, Hastert initially said that they were "none of his business."
For a few months after that conversation, Hastert stopped withdrawing money, according to the court filing. When the transactions resumed that July, the withdrawals were in $9,000 increments, below the $10,000 threshold requiring them to be reported to regulators.
The FBI and the Internal Revenue Service learned of the suspicious activity as well as similar large withdrawals from two other bank accounts held in Hastert's name. In less than two years, Hastert had taken out $775,000 in cash from the three accounts, with the increments dropping from $50,000 to $9,000 each time.
Andy Richter says he recalls 'Lazyboy' chair cited in Hastert case
With Hastert's status as the former House speaker, and in light of his job at the time as a high-profile lobbyist, federal agents worried that the withdrawals signaled that Hastert was involved in criminal activity, either as a perpetrator or a victim. By late 2014, the withdrawals totaled $1.7 million.
On Dec. 8, 2014, FBI agents confronted Hastert at his home in Plano. He told them bank officials had given him a "real hassle" when he'd withdrawn $50,000 and that he didn't want them "calling up all the time," according to the court filing. Hastert said he was not in any kind of trouble but was keeping his cash "in a safe place" because he didn't think banks were secure, an explanation the agents viewed with skepticism.
Shortly after that interview, Hastert's lawyers contacted the government to make a startling accusation: The former speaker was being extorted by a former Yorkville High School student and wrestler — the man who came to be called Individual A — who threatened to go public with a false allegation that Hastert had inappropriately touched him during a wrestling trip decades ago. He demanded $3.5 million in hush money.
Hastert agreed to record conversations with Individual A.
In the first call, in early March, Hastert told Individual A at the direction of the FBI that he needed more time to get the next $100,000 payment. Individual A agreed to the delay. Three weeks later, Hastert again placed a recorded call to Individual A. This time, agents had instructed him to "push back" against Individual A, to say he had been falsely accused and he wanted the payments to finally end.
PDF: Prosecutors' position on Dennis Hastert sentencing
Instead, Hastert repeated the same story from the first call, saying he needed more time.
In both calls, agents and federal prosecutors noted that Individual A's tone and comments did not sound like someone committing extortion. Individual A did not threaten to go public. He did not seem angry that Hastert had asked for more time. Indeed, he was sympathetic to Hastert.
In the second call, in fact, Individual A said he understood his agreement with Hastert was a "private, personal matter" and nobody else's business. He offered to slow the payments down and asked about keeping their stories straight. He also reminded Hastert that he had wanted to bring in "two close confidantes" of Hastert's to help them reach an agreement and that he also wanted to involve lawyers in the deal to make it "legal."
Hastert had refused.
Agents confronted Individual A. He told them that when he was a wrestler for Hastert's team in the 1970s, the coach had invited him to attend a wrestling camp with other boys that included a two-night stay in a motel. Hastert, the only adult on the trip, told Individual A he would stay in the coach's room, while the other boys slept in another room, according to the court filing.
When it was time for bed, Individual A went to Hastert's room, where the coach told him he wanted to "check on" a groin pull he had complained about. According to Individual A's account, Hastert told him to lie on the bed and take off his underwear, then began massaging his groin area in a way that was clearly inappropriate, the filing stated.
Individual A "jumped off the bed, grabbed his underwear and ran across the room to slouch in a chair," the filing said.
He was confused and embarrassed and wound up apologizing to Hastert. The two slept in the same bed that night, though the next night Individual A refused to go to Hastert's room, according to the court filing.
PDF: Dennis Hastert's lawyers ask judge for probation
Three of the victims, according to the court filing, said the one-time unwanted sexual contact began with a massage, typically after wrestling practice when they had stayed late to work out or shower and while alone in the high school's locker room. A man whom the prosecutors called Individual B alleged that Hastert performed "a sex act" on him inside the school's locker room when he was a 14-year-old freshman.
He was alone after a workout when Hastert told him to get on a massage table so the coach could "loosen him up," the court filing said. At some point, Hastert told the boy to turn so he was lying face up on the table.
"Defendant then performed a sexual act on Individual B," prosecutors wrote.
Another wrestler, whom prosecutors called Individual C, alleged a similar scenario, though not as graphic. He said Hastert "brushed his hand against (the boy's) genitals" during a massage. Prosecutors did not provide the boy's age in their sentencing memo, but they said the alleged inappropriate touch occurred one night after practice when the boy had stayed late to run to "cut weight" and had just finished showering.
"Individual C recalls that it was 'very weird' and made him uncomfortable," prosecutors wrote. "Individual C did not physically react to being touched by defendant, and at some point he got up and put on his clothes."
According to Tribune reporting, Individual D graduated Yorkville High School toward the end of the coaching tenure of Hastert, who left in 1981 after winning election to the state legislature. Late one night after practice, Individual D had stayed afterward to "cut weight." Hastert suggested that a massage could "take some pounds off." But instead, Hastert performed "a sexual act" on the 17-year-old boy after removing his pants, according to the court filing.
Prosecutors also said Individual D told them about a peculiar habit their coach had of watching the teens while they showered. Other wrestlers in earlier Tribune interviews echoed the account provided in the filing. "Individual D recalled that defendant put a 'Lazyboy'-type chair in direct view of the shower stalls in the locker room where he sat while the boys showered," prosecutors wrote.
One of the underage boys whom Hastert is alleged to have abused is dead. Stephen Reinboldt died in 1995 at age 42 of AIDS.
Stephen Reinboldt's sister Jolene Burdge speaks out about her brother's alleged abuse by Dennis Hastert decades ago when they lived in Yorkville. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
When Hastert's sentence ends, prosecutors said, Hastert should be evaluated as a sex offender and never again have any contact with his alleged victims.
Burdge, reached at her Montana home after she had read the court filing, said she felt her efforts to speak out on her brother's behalf had made a difference.
"Stevie didn't think anyone would ever believe him," she said. "This confirms he was telling the truth. It's right there in black and white."
jmeisner@tribpub.com
cmgutowski@tribpub.com
jcoen@tribpub.com
Copyright © 2016, Chicago Tribune
Tribune coverage: The Dennis Hastert saga
Click to expand...
Jason Meisner , Jeff Coen and Christy GutowskiContact ReportersChicago Tribune
Approached by federal agents last year about dozens of large cash bank withdrawals, Dennis Hastert claimed he was being extorted by a former student who said Hastert had sexually abused him decades earlier when he was a high school teacher and wrestling coach.
The agents took the former U.S. House speaker at his word. But when they listened in on two phone conversations between Hastert and the man supposedly pressuring him to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, agents began to suspect the story was a lie.
What soon was apparent, according to an explosive document filed in the federal case against Hastert late Friday, was that instead of being forced to pay to keep false allegations from being spread, Hastert was paying to hide his sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy.
The document filed by federal prosecutors in advance of Hastert's April 27 sentencing provides a dramatic account of the fall of the man who once was second in line to the U.S. presidency, with the first details of how Hastert allegedly fondled young wrestlers who saw him as a mentor.
According to prosecutors, Hastert inappropriately touched the teenage boys in hotel rooms during team trips and in empty locker rooms, often coaxing them into a compromising position by offering to massage them. He allegedly performed a sex act on two wrestlers at separate times, and the filing quotes another saying Hastert set up a "Lazyboy" type of chair outside the locker room's showers in order to sit and watch the boys.
The document depicts a seemingly desperate Hastert trying to protect himself by shifting blame onto one of the former wrestlers, a claim that came undone when agents recording Hastert's phone calls with the man they came to call Individual A heard his voice for the first time.
They realized then that Hastert might be the criminal.
Hastert's attorneys have sought to portray him in advance of sentencing as a family man who gave great service to his country and, in his old age and in ill health, regrets unspecified indiscretions from decades ago. They have asked for probation for Hastert's money-structuring conviction.
Prosecutors, in their 26-page filing late Friday, offered a starkly different portrayal. Hastert, they said, had hidden the alleged sexual abuse of five young men for decades while rising in politics and, over time, amassing considerable wealth — while leaving his victims emotionally shattered.
"While defendant achieved great success, reaping all the benefits that went with it," prosecutors wrote, "these boys struggled, and all are still struggling now with what defendant did to them."
Prosecutors noted that Hastert could not be charged with sex crimes because the statute of limitations had long passed.
The Hastert investigation, according to the court filing, began in April 2012, when a bank compliance officer preparing for a routine exam unrelated to Hastert noticed a strange series of seven $50,000 cash withdrawals made from Hastert's account in Yorkville dating to 2010.
When a risk management officer spoke to Hastert about the withdrawals, Hastert initially said that they were "none of his business."
For a few months after that conversation, Hastert stopped withdrawing money, according to the court filing. When the transactions resumed that July, the withdrawals were in $9,000 increments, below the $10,000 threshold requiring them to be reported to regulators.
The FBI and the Internal Revenue Service learned of the suspicious activity as well as similar large withdrawals from two other bank accounts held in Hastert's name. In less than two years, Hastert had taken out $775,000 in cash from the three accounts, with the increments dropping from $50,000 to $9,000 each time.
Andy Richter says he recalls 'Lazyboy' chair cited in Hastert case
With Hastert's status as the former House speaker, and in light of his job at the time as a high-profile lobbyist, federal agents worried that the withdrawals signaled that Hastert was involved in criminal activity, either as a perpetrator or a victim. By late 2014, the withdrawals totaled $1.7 million.
On Dec. 8, 2014, FBI agents confronted Hastert at his home in Plano. He told them bank officials had given him a "real hassle" when he'd withdrawn $50,000 and that he didn't want them "calling up all the time," according to the court filing. Hastert said he was not in any kind of trouble but was keeping his cash "in a safe place" because he didn't think banks were secure, an explanation the agents viewed with skepticism.
Shortly after that interview, Hastert's lawyers contacted the government to make a startling accusation: The former speaker was being extorted by a former Yorkville High School student and wrestler — the man who came to be called Individual A — who threatened to go public with a false allegation that Hastert had inappropriately touched him during a wrestling trip decades ago. He demanded $3.5 million in hush money.
Hastert agreed to record conversations with Individual A.
In the first call, in early March, Hastert told Individual A at the direction of the FBI that he needed more time to get the next $100,000 payment. Individual A agreed to the delay. Three weeks later, Hastert again placed a recorded call to Individual A. This time, agents had instructed him to "push back" against Individual A, to say he had been falsely accused and he wanted the payments to finally end.
PDF: Prosecutors' position on Dennis Hastert sentencing
Instead, Hastert repeated the same story from the first call, saying he needed more time.
In both calls, agents and federal prosecutors noted that Individual A's tone and comments did not sound like someone committing extortion. Individual A did not threaten to go public. He did not seem angry that Hastert had asked for more time. Indeed, he was sympathetic to Hastert.
In the second call, in fact, Individual A said he understood his agreement with Hastert was a "private, personal matter" and nobody else's business. He offered to slow the payments down and asked about keeping their stories straight. He also reminded Hastert that he had wanted to bring in "two close confidantes" of Hastert's to help them reach an agreement and that he also wanted to involve lawyers in the deal to make it "legal."
Hastert had refused.
Agents confronted Individual A. He told them that when he was a wrestler for Hastert's team in the 1970s, the coach had invited him to attend a wrestling camp with other boys that included a two-night stay in a motel. Hastert, the only adult on the trip, told Individual A he would stay in the coach's room, while the other boys slept in another room, according to the court filing.
When it was time for bed, Individual A went to Hastert's room, where the coach told him he wanted to "check on" a groin pull he had complained about. According to Individual A's account, Hastert told him to lie on the bed and take off his underwear, then began massaging his groin area in a way that was clearly inappropriate, the filing stated.
Individual A "jumped off the bed, grabbed his underwear and ran across the room to slouch in a chair," the filing said.
He was confused and embarrassed and wound up apologizing to Hastert. The two slept in the same bed that night, though the next night Individual A refused to go to Hastert's room, according to the court filing.
PDF: Dennis Hastert's lawyers ask judge for probation
Three of the victims, according to the court filing, said the one-time unwanted sexual contact began with a massage, typically after wrestling practice when they had stayed late to work out or shower and while alone in the high school's locker room. A man whom the prosecutors called Individual B alleged that Hastert performed "a sex act" on him inside the school's locker room when he was a 14-year-old freshman.
He was alone after a workout when Hastert told him to get on a massage table so the coach could "loosen him up," the court filing said. At some point, Hastert told the boy to turn so he was lying face up on the table.
"Defendant then performed a sexual act on Individual B," prosecutors wrote.
Another wrestler, whom prosecutors called Individual C, alleged a similar scenario, though not as graphic. He said Hastert "brushed his hand against (the boy's) genitals" during a massage. Prosecutors did not provide the boy's age in their sentencing memo, but they said the alleged inappropriate touch occurred one night after practice when the boy had stayed late to run to "cut weight" and had just finished showering.
"Individual C recalls that it was 'very weird' and made him uncomfortable," prosecutors wrote. "Individual C did not physically react to being touched by defendant, and at some point he got up and put on his clothes."
According to Tribune reporting, Individual D graduated Yorkville High School toward the end of the coaching tenure of Hastert, who left in 1981 after winning election to the state legislature. Late one night after practice, Individual D had stayed afterward to "cut weight." Hastert suggested that a massage could "take some pounds off." But instead, Hastert performed "a sexual act" on the 17-year-old boy after removing his pants, according to the court filing.
Prosecutors also said Individual D told them about a peculiar habit their coach had of watching the teens while they showered. Other wrestlers in earlier Tribune interviews echoed the account provided in the filing. "Individual D recalled that defendant put a 'Lazyboy'-type chair in direct view of the shower stalls in the locker room where he sat while the boys showered," prosecutors wrote.
One of the underage boys whom Hastert is alleged to have abused is dead. Stephen Reinboldt died in 1995 at age 42 of AIDS.
Stephen Reinboldt's sister Jolene Burdge speaks out about her brother's alleged abuse by Dennis Hastert decades ago when they lived in Yorkville. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
When Hastert's sentence ends, prosecutors said, Hastert should be evaluated as a sex offender and never again have any contact with his alleged victims.
Burdge, reached at her Montana home after she had read the court filing, said she felt her efforts to speak out on her brother's behalf had made a difference.
"Stevie didn't think anyone would ever believe him," she said. "This confirms he was telling the truth. It's right there in black and white."
jmeisner@tribpub.com
cmgutowski@tribpub.com
jcoen@tribpub.com
Copyright © 2016, Chicago Tribune
Tribune coverage: The Dennis Hastert saga
Click to expand...
