CHICAGO - Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to a felony charge involving a scheme to pay a total of $3.5 million to an anonymous victim of Hastert's alleged sexual abuse while Hastert was a high school wrestling coach - decades before holding the top slot in the U.S. House.
Hastert said that he had illegally structured cash withdrawals to evade bank currency-reporting requirements.
The plea agreement says Hastert starting making $50,000 withdrawals in 2010 and gave Individual A the cash at meetings held about every six weeks.
When warned those large withdrawals had to be reported to financial regulators, Hastert began withdrawing increments less than $10,000 each time. He told the feds he didn't trust the banking system, and was keeping the cash when he was questioned, according to the plea agreement.
Hastert could be sentenced from probation to six months in federal prison. At Wednesday's hearing, Judge Thomas Durkin set sentencing for January 2016, and said that federal law allowed him to sentence up to five years in federal prison.
