Hastert accuser to speak at sentencing

CHICAGO -- The judge in Dennis Hastert's hush-money case signaled Wednesday he will consider the former U.S. House speaker's lies to investigators he was being extorted on a false claim of sexual abuse at his sentencing hearing, where prosecutors say one person who says he was abused is expected to speak.

Someone identified in court papers as "Individual D," one of at least four former students who prosecutors say Hastert sexually abused, would be one of two witnesses who want to make statements at the April 27 sentencing, prosecutors also said at a Chicago hearing.

The other is a sister of a now-deceased accuser.

Hastert has pleaded guilty to breaking banking law to pay $3.5 million to ensure someone called "Individual A" in court papers stayed silent about being abused when he was 14 at a high school where Hastert coached wrestling until 1981.

Hastert wasn't charged with sex abuse because statutes of limitations long since ran out.

Judge Thomas M. Durkin made clear he is disturbed by prosecutors' accounts Hastert lied to federal agents investigating about why he was withdrawing large sums of cash by falsely accusing "Individual A" of extorting him on what Hastert said was a bogus accusation of sexual abuse.

Hastert, the judge said, was accusing someone he victimized of "holding him up."

And he said that behavior, unlike the abuse allegations, wasn't distant history.

"That's not conduct that's 40 years old," Durkin said. "That conduct is ... a year old."

About Hastert's false allegations against Individual A, he added: "That's a big one."