Dennis Hastert, a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was due to be arraigned Tuesday in federal court in Chicago on charges of trying to hide large cash transactions and lying to the FBI about it,Reuters reporting.
According to an indictment, Hastert, 73, was trying to evade detection of $3.5 million in payments he had promised to make to someone from his hometown of Yorkville, Illinois, to conceal past misconduct against the person.
Law enforcement officials have said Hastert was trying to cover up was sexual contact with a male, according to several media reports.
On Tuesday, Hastert was seen for the first time in public since the indictment. ABC News filmed the former lawmaker and his wife driving away from their farm in Wisconsin, stopping at a gas station in their black SUV, and arriving at their home in the Illinois town of Plano, about an hour’s drive from Chicago.
Thomas Green, a Washington white-collar defense attorney with the Sidley Austin law firm, will represent Hastert, according to court documents and the law firm. Green declined to comment on the case.
Hastert led the House for eight years before leaving Congress in 2007. He was the longest-serving Republican speaker.
After the indictment, Hastert resigned from the Dickstein Shapiro lobbying firm in Washington, where he worked, and from the boards of exchange operator CME Group Inc and REX American Resources.
His alma mater, Wheaton College in suburban Chicago, removed his name from its policy center.
According to the indictment, Hastert withdrew $1.7 million in cash from his bank accounts from 2010 to 2014. He is charged with “structuring” $952,000 of those withdrawals, taking the funds out in increments of under $10,000 to evade the requirement that banks report large cash transactions.
Hastert then told the FBI that he was keeping the cash for himself, which the indictment said was a false statement.
The person receiving the payments has yet to be identified. But another possible victim has emerged. The sister of a student at Yorkville High School told ABC News on Friday Hastert had sexually abused her brother, who is now deceased.
The arraignment is before District Judge Thomas Durkin in the federal courthouse in Chicago. The District Court for the Northern District of Illinois announced special media guidelines for proceedings including an overflow room for reporters.
