Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert has officially completed his 15-month prison sentence and is no longer being monitored by law enforcement.
Bureau of Prisons records indicate that Wednesday was the end of Hastert’s period in federal custody.
Illinois’ Lake County Sheriff’s Office said that it stopped its electronic monitoring of the 75-year-old Wednesday morning. He now begins two years of probation.
Hastert pleaded guilty to banking violations in a $3.5million hush-money case that revealed he sexually abused several high school students.
Dennis Hastert has officially completed his 15-month prison sentence and is no longer being monitored by law enforcement. Illinois’ Lake County Sheriff’s Office says it stopped its electronic monitoring of the 75-year-old Wednesday morning. He now begins two years of probation
He left a Minnesota federal prison on July 17, and sheriff’s deputies fitted him with an electronic device typically used when someone is under home confinement.
Officials never said, however, if Hastert was living at his Plano home in suburban Chicago at the time.
A prisons spokesman later Wednesday confirmed Hastert is no longer under federal custody.
In April 2016, Hastert was sentenced to 15-months in jail for banking violations related to a scheme to pay hush money to teenage boys he sexually abused while coaching wrestling at a high school in Yorkville, Illinois in the 1960s and 1970s.
Hastert, the longest-serving Republican House speaker in history, pleaded guilty in 2015 to the crime of structuring, which is a form of money laundering that involves withdrawing a large sum of money in small increments to avoid detection.
In April 2016, Hastert was sentenced to 15-months in jail for banking violations related to a scheme to pay hush money to teenage boys he sexually abused while coaching wrestling at a high school in Yorkville, Illinois in the 1960s and 1970s (Hastert pictured during his tenure as a wrestling coach in the 1960s)
Hastert, the longest-serving Republican House speaker in history, pleaded guilty in 2015 to the crime of structuring, which is a form of money laundering that involves withdrawing a large sum of money in small increments to avoid detection
The lawmaker was taking the money out of his bank accounts to pay a promised $3.5 million in compensation for pain and suffering to one of his five sexual abuse victims of wrestlers he coached, he admitted in his plea agreement and at his sentencing hearing.
Scott Cross, one of Hastert’s victims who stayed silent for 37 years about the abuse, said he was ‘disappointed’ to find out that the ex-lawmaker would be released two months early.
‘I was a little surprised,’ Cross told CNN’s Jake Taper on The Lead at the time. ‘I was a little, to be honest, a little disappointed in the sentence that was given out.’
‘You think about shame, guilt, embarrassment, humiliation – the Hasterts of the world have so much trust and respect over you that you really have a hard time processing and understanding it,’ Cross added.
The lawmaker was taking the money out of his bank accounts to pay a promised $3.5 million in compensation for pain and suffering to one of his five sexual abuse victims of wrestlers he coached, he admitted in his plea agreement and at his sentencing hearing
In a memo written in advance of his 2016 sentencing hearing, prosecutors spelled out in graphic detail how Hastert sexually molested or inappropriately touched five teenagers who trusted him as their wrestling coach.
And as Hastert rose to power, believing that his wrongdoing would never be made public, his victims struggled with the effects of the abuse, prosecutors wrote.
‘He made them feel alone, ashamed, guilty and devoid of dignity,’ prosecutors wrote. ‘While defendant achieved great success, reaping all the benefits that went with it, these boys struggled, and all are still struggling now with what defendant did to them.’
Hastert was never charged with sex abuse, because the statute of limitations on his alleged crimes had expired.
At the time of sentencing, US District Judge Thomas Durkin said he would have given him a longer sentence if it had not been for his age and poor health.