{"id":365338,"date":"2026-10-06T00:46:33","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T00:46:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/365338\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T00:46:33","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T00:46:33","slug":"former-house-speaker-dennis-hastert-who-later-admitted-to-sexual-abuse-dead-at-84","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/365338\/","title":{"rendered":"Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who later admitted to sexual abuse, dead at 84"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who later admitted to sexually abusing children<\/a> while a high school wrestling coach before entering politics, died over the weekend at his home in the Chicago area. He was 84.<\/p>\n

Kendall County Coroner Jacquie Purcell said Hastert died due to natural causes.<\/p>\n

Hastert (R-Ill.) served for 20 years in the House of Representatives and presided over the chamber during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the October 2001 anthrax crisis, when envelopes of the deadly powder were sent to Capitol Hill offices. He resigned in November 2007.<\/p>\n

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert leaves the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in a wheelchair after his sentencing in Chicago, on Wednesday, April 27, 2016. Getty Images<\/p>\n

US President George W. Bush, right, waves with Hastert, left, during the Peter Roskam for Congress and David McSweeney for Congress reception at the Chicago Hilton in Chicago in 2006. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

He resigned from Congress in November 2007, having lost the speakership when Democrats won the House majority in the 2006 midterm election. In the runup to election day, House Republicans were sent reeling by a scandal in which Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) sent sexually explicit messages to boys in the House page program. Hastert claimed he had no knowledge of Foley\u2019s behavior.<\/p>\n

Hastert\u2019s stunning fall from grace began in 2013, when the FBI began investigating suspicious cash withdrawals, including payments totalling $3.5 million<\/a> to someone known only as \u201cIndividual A\u201d.<\/p>\n

In 2014, Hastert was indicted by a grand jury on charges of making false statements to investigators and unlawfully arranging withdrawals to evade bank reporting requirements.<\/p>\n

In 2015, it emerged that \u201cIndividual A\u201d had accused Hastert of sexually abusing him while a student at Yorkville High School in the Chicago suburbs.<\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors ultimately alleged Hastert had molested at least four boys and was paying them hush money. He was never charged with sexual abuse, as the statute of limitations had expired.<\/p>\n

The former speaker pled guilty<\/a> and admitted at his sentencing hearing that he had molested boys during his time as a coach. He was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison, ordered to undergo sex-offender treatment, serve two years of supervised release and pay a $250,000 fine.<\/p>\n

Hastret is seen in a mug shot. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing is more stunning than to have the words \u2018serial child molester\u2019 and \u2018speaker of the House\u2019 in the same sentence,\u201d federal judge Thomas Durkin said at the time.<\/p>\n

Hastert<\/a> <\/a>served 13 months of his sentence and was released in July 2017. He was the longest serving Republican speaker and the highest-ranking elected official to serve a prison sentence. After leaving Congress and before his arrest, Hastert worked as a lobbyist and consultant.<\/p>\n

Born in 1942 in Aurora, Ill., Hastert grew up in a farming community. He worked as a teacher and coach from 1965 to 1981, when he was elected to the Illinois legislature. In 1976, he was named Illinois Coach of the Year after leading Yorkville to the state wrestling title.<\/p>\n

First elected to Congress in 1986, Hastert became the \u201caccidental\u201d speaker in early 1999 after Newt Gingrich\u2019s initial successor, Bob Livingston (R-La.) stepped down over revelations of his extramarital affair.<\/p>\n

Hastert was sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay $250,000 to a victim\u2019s fund for breaking banking laws as he sought to pay a man to keep quiet about past sexual abuse. Getty Images<\/p>\n

House Republicans ultimately settled on Hastert, who was seen as a noncontroversial pick with a reputation for congeniality.<\/p>\n

Hastert almost also became an accidental, temporary president the following year. <\/p>\n

As the controversy and court battle over the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore dragged on, there was a possibility that Hastert \u2014 in his role as speaker \u2014 would become acting president in the event of an Electoral College deadlock.<\/p>\n

Surrounded by US Marshals, Hastert leaves the Dirksen Federal Courthouse, on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2015, in Chicago. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI really didn\u2019t want to be president, temporary or otherwise,\u201d he wrote in his 2004 memoir \u201cSpeaker.\u201d In the end, a 5-4 ruling by the Supreme Court ended the Florida recount and handed Bush the presidency.<\/p>\n

A strong supporter of Bush\u2019s legislative agenda, Hastert helped pass a huge expansion of prescription drug benefits in Medicare in 2003.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of Hastert\u2019s conviction<\/a>, many groups abandoned their association with him and his portrait was removed from a hallway outside the House chamber.<\/p>\n

Hastert is survived by his wife, Jean, and two adult sons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who later admitted to sexually abusing children while a high school…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[858,1015,135381,5350,9,11,10,87,2134,5474,7316,58],"class_list":["post-365338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-congress","tag-deaths","tag-dennis-hastert","tag-illinois","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-politics","tag-republicans","tag-sexual-abuse","tag-us-house-of-representatives","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}