'Individual A' sues Hastert for money over unpaid hush money

CHICAGO -- A man who alleges he was sexually abused by former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and later promised $3.5 million to stay quiet filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit Monday, saying he's owed more than half of the money Hastert promised.

The man, identified in court documents as "Individual A, filed the lawsuit in Yorkville, the Illinois city where Hastert was a high-school teacher and wrestling coach when, prosecutors believe, he molested at least four boys decades ago.

Prosecutors said the statute of limitations on the sex crimes ran out long ago, so they could charge the 74-year-old Republican only with dodging banking regulations for when he withdrew the hush money.

Hastert pleaded guilty to the federal banking charges and is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in Chicago. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Hastert's attorneys declined to comment on the lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, the man said he was 14 when Hastert offered to take him to a wrestling camp, before he went to high school. The man said Hastert sexually abused him in a motel room where he and Hastert were staying alone, adding Hastert was a "trusted friend" of his family.

In the years after the abuse, the man "suffered severe panic attacks which lead to periods of unemployment, career changes, bouts of depression, hospitalization, and long-term psychiatric treatment," according to the lawsuit.

But it wasn't until 2008, when the man said he learned he wasn't Hastert's only victim, he confronted the former Illinois congressman. Hastert acknowledged "the lifelong pain and suffering he caused" the man, according to the lawsuit.

The man asked to be compensated for the pain and suffering Hastert caused, and the two agreed to the $3.5 million the man suggested. The lawsuit alleges Hastert paid a total of $1.7 million between June 2010 and December 2014, but he hasn't paid the rest.

Hastert's attorneys in April hinted at such a lawsuit, saying in a court filing that Individual A might sue Hastert if he weren't paid the rest of the money he'd agreed to pay.

Prosecutors have portrayed the $3.5 million agreement between Hastert and Individual A as an agreement akin to an out-of-court settlement, without a court being involved. Government court filings characterize the $3.5 million figure as just compensation for the trauma Hastert's sexual abuse caused.

Federal agents investigated the possibility that Individual A was extorting Hastert, but ruled it out.