Wednesday, April 27, 2016 12:59 PM EDT
J. Dennis Hastert, once among this nation’s most powerful politicians, was sentenced for illegally structuring bank transactions in an effort to cover up his sexual abuse of young members of a wrestling team he coached decades ago.
“The defendant is a serial child molester,” said Judge Thomas M. Durkin, of Federal District Court, in a tough rebuke of the former House speaker before issuing his sentence. He added, “Nothing is more stunning than having ‘serial child molester’ and ‘Speaker of the House’ in the same sentence.”