USA-politiker får fängelse för sexbrott mot pojkar

John Dennis "Denny" Hastert (/ˈhæstərt/; born January 2, 1942) is an American former politician and lobbyist from Illinois. A Republican, Hastert was the 51st Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, serving from 1999 to 2007. He represented Illinois's 14th congressional district in the House for twenty years, 1987 to 2007. He is the longest-serving Republican Speaker of the House in history. In 2015, Hastert pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges of structuring financial transactions to conceal payments to an individual whom he alleged had sexually abused decades earlier, when Hastert worked as a high school wrestling coach. In 2016, Hastert admitted that he had molested boys. Hastert grew up in rural Illinois. He graduated from Wheaton College with a degree in economics in 1964 and obtained an education degree from Northern Illinois University three years later. From 1965 to 1981, Hastert was a high school teacher and coach. He lost a 1980 bid for the Illinois House of Representatives, but tried again and won a seat in 1981. He was first elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1987, and re-elected every subsequent election until he retired in 2007. Hastert rose through the Republican ranks in the House, becoming chief deputy whip and eventually Speaker in 1999. As Speaker of the House, Hastert supported the George W. Bush administration's foreign and domestic policies. After Democrats took control of the House in 2007 following the 2006 election, Hastert chose not to seek the position of minority leader, resigned his House seat, and became a lobbyist at the firm of Dickstein Shapiro. In May 2015, Hastert was indicted on federal charges of structuring bank withdrawals to evade bank reporting requirements and making false statements to federal investigators. Federal prosecutors said that the money was to compensate for and conceal deliberately unspecified misconduct by Hastert against an unnamed individual years earlier. Soon afterward, public accusations emerged that Hastert had sexually abused three male students (including the aforementioned unnamed individual) when he was a teacher more than three decades earlier. In October 2015, Hastert entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors. Under the agreement, Hastert pleaded guilty to the "structuring" charge (a felony), and the making false statements charge was dropped. In court submissions on sentencing considerations filed in April 2016, federal prosecutors made allegations of sexual misconduct against Hastert, saying that he had molested at least four boys as young as 14 while he worked as a high school wrestling coach decades earlier. At the sentencing hearing later that month, Hastert admitted that he had sexually abused boys, but only after being pressured by the judge. The judge in the case referred to Hastert as a "serial child molester" and imposed a sentence of fifteen months in prison, two years' supervised release, and a $250,000 fine. Hastert is "one of the highest-ranking politicians in American history to be sentenced to prison."