Alleged abuse victim files $1.8 mn lawsuit against ex-US speaker

Washington (AFP) – A former student of Dennis Hastert filed a $1.8 million lawsuit Monday alleging sexual abuse when he was 14, just days before the fallen US House speaker is due to be sentenced in a related case.

The amount is the remainder of a $3.5 million settlement over the abuse, said to have been committed three decades ago. 

Although the complaint was filed anonymously by a plaintiff under the common pseudonym “James Doe,” the allegations make clear he is the man referred to as “Individual A” in last year’s federal indictment against Hastert for violating banking laws to make the settlement payments and lying to the FBI about them.

Hastert, who pleaded guilty to the bank structuring charge, is due to be sentenced Wednesday.

Statutes of limitations have long passed on the abuse, which took place when Hastert taught and coached at Yorkville High School in Illinois from the 1960s to the early 1980s, so he is only being charged for breaking financial laws.

Federal prosecutors say Hastert’s abuse was widespread, and have released stunning details of abuse of at least five boys during Hastert’s time at Yorkville High School.

The latest lawsuit, filed in county court in Yorkville, claims that Hastert “violated the special trust” the alleged victim placed in him by “sexually molesting and abusing plaintiff in a motel room” on a wrestling trip.

As a result, the plaintiff said he suffered long-running problems.

“For many years to follow, plaintiff suffered severe panic attacks which (led) to periods of unemployment, career changes, bouts of depression, hospitalization and long-term psychiatric treatment,” the complaint read.

Hastert’s lawyers declined requests for comment.

Federal prosecutors say Hastert was able to actually pay the man a total of $1.7 million — a little less than half the agreed amount — between 2010 and 2014 in regular payments that only stopped when the government started investigating him.

The payments stopped when the FBI began investigating the unusual disbursements.

Ironically, it was a scandal involving a former lawmaker — Mark Foley — sending sexually explicit and suggestive messages to teenage pages, or aides, that led to Hastert’s downfall as speaker of the House of Representatives, a post he held from 1999 to 2007. 

He also voted against gay rights legislation.