High-profile sex abuse case instructive on many levels
Former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert is scheduled to be sentenced later this month for criminal wrongdoing regarding evasive money transactions.
Those dealings were what initially led to a federal investigation focused upon allegations of Hastert’s sexual abuse of students who were under his charge decades ago, when he was a high school wrestling coach.
As a recent CNN media account notes, Hastert’s reported payment of approximately $3.5 million to one of his accusers is what expanded a probe into contacts with other students in past decades.
Prior to becoming the longest-tenured Republic House speaker ever, Hastert coached wrestling teams for many years in Illinois, where he was once selected as the state’s Coach of the Year.
In a document released last week, federal lawyers stated that Hastert sexually abused at least four boys — all wrestlers — during his coaching years. That behavior, prosecutors noted, “violated the special trust between those young boys and their coach.”
The case will undoubtedly inspire the wrath of many victims’ advocates across the country, including in California, for more than just reasons relating to its details surrounding predatory behavior aimed at juveniles. Many proponents of criminal law reform are certainly incensed that, notwithstanding the evidence against Hastert, the ex-speaker will never face abuse charges, owing to the expiration of a relevant Illinois statute of limitations.
Although Hastert recently issued an apology, the words he chose did not explicitly acknowledge sexual behavior. His attorneys merely stated that the former coach and legislator was “deeply sorry … for his misconduct that occurred decades ago and the resulting harm [it] caused to others.”
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