Prosecutors detail sex-abuse allegations against Hastert

CHICAGO (AP) — Dennis Hastert agreed to pay $3.5 million to a person the former House speaker sexually abused when the victim was a 14-year-old wrestler on a team coached by Hastert, prosecutors said in a court filing that details allegations by five former students.

The filing recommends that a federal judge sentence Hastert to up to six months in prison for violating banking laws as he sought to pay one of his victims, identified in court documents as "Individual A," to ensure the person kept quiet.

Prosecutors say Hastert still was abusing boys when he first decided to run for office, but the now-74-year-old Republican managed to keep any hint of sexual misconduct quiet throughout a political career that carried him from the Illinois Legislature to the halls of Congress and eventually to the speaker's office, where he was second in the line of succession to the presidency.

The defense has asked the judge to give Hastert probation and spare him prison time, citing Hastert's deteriorating health and the public shame he's already suffered.

Prosecutors say in the filing that Hastert's known sexual acts against Individual A and other accusers consist of "intentional touching of minors' groin area and genitals or oral sex with a minor."

According to the document, Individual A told prosecutors the abuse occurred in a motel room on the way home from wrestling camp.

Pressed about the withdrawals, Hastert gave various explanations for what he was doing with the cash — that it was for vintage cars and for stocks, that he didn't trust the banks — before he claimed he was be being extorted by someone he said was making a false sex-abuse claim.