http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/us/dennis-hastert-sentencing.html?_r=0
april 27 2016 J. Dennis Hastert, once among the nation’s most powerful politicians, was sentenced on Wednesday to 15 months in prison for illegally structuring bank transactions in an effort to cover up his sexual abuse of young members of a wrestling team he coached decades ago.
While the sentencing hearing was, technically, about a violation of banking rules and regulations, the proceedings focused squarely on the underlying reason for Mr. Hastert’s puzzling bank withdrawals — his abuse of young wrestlers who had viewed him as a role model.
“The defendant is a serial child molester,” said Judge Thomas M. Durkin of Federal District Court, as Mr. Hastert sat impassively, often staring downward, hands crossed on his lap. He added, “Some actions can obliterate a lifetime of good works. Nothing is more stunning than having ‘serial child molester’ and ‘speaker of the House’ in the same sentence.”
Mr. Hastert was not charged with sexual abuse because statutes of limitation for acts in the 1960s and ’70s have run out; the judge noted pointedly that punishment for such a conviction would have been far worse.
Illegally structuring bank transactions to keep such abuse secret — the felony count to which Mr. Hastert pleaded guilty — carried a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
