Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert | Chicago Tribune photo
By Amy Korte -
Former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert will continue receiving pension payments from the Illinois General Assembly Retirement System, or GARS, despite having been sentenced to prison April 27 for a financial crime stemming from Hastert’s cover-up of his sexual abuse of high school wrestlers he coached, according to Reuters.
Hastert served six years as a representative in the Illinois House during the 1980s and receives an annual pension payment of $28,025. The former U.S. House speaker has already received $420,524 in pension payments from GARS, though he contributed only $19,805 to his GARS retirement fund.
Despite the 2010 financial crime to which he pleaded guilty and his admitted sexual abuse of high school students, GARS has no plans to end Hastert’s pension payments because the crimes occurred outside of Hastert’s service in the General Assembly and “couldn’t be related to his role as an elected official,” according to Timothy Blair, executive secretary for GARS.
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