A House Speaker Went to Prison for His Bank Withdrawals, Not His Abuse

Jolene followed Dennis Hastert out to the parking lot after her brother's funeral. Hastert, once her brother's wrestling coach and later the longest-serving Republican Speaker of the House, had shown up to pay his respects.

She asked him why he had harmed her brother. Hastert stared at her and said nothing. She told him his secret had not died with her brother, and then he drove off without answering.

Her brother was Steve Rainbolt, a former student Hastert had abused decades earlier. Rainbolt died in the 1990s, and for years Jolene tried to warn reporters and survivor groups, without success. What finally caught Hastert was not the abuse itself, but the way he paid to keep it quiet.

In the 2010s, Hastert promised 3.5 million dollars in hush money to another former student he had abused. He could have paid it in one payment, which would have been legal, but a large transfer would have triggered bank reporting rules.

Instead, he withdrew the money in repeated payments of just under 10,000 dollars. The practice is called structuring, or breaking up transactions to avoid reporting requirements, which federal investigators expect criminals to use.

Federal investigators noticed the pattern of payments of around 9,800 dollars and opened an investigation. The FBI called Jolene in May 2015 to ask what she knew, and Hastert at first claimed he was a victim of blackmail.

More former students then came forward, with at least five saying Hastert had molested them as children. But the time limit for bringing sex-crime charges, known as the statute of limitations, had long expired.

So Hastert was charged and convicted only for the financial crimes. At sentencing, the judge still described him as a repeat molester of children. He received 15 months in prison, served 13 months, and was released in 2017.