[ad_1]
Yorkville, Illinois (AP) — Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and a man accusing him of child sexual abuse are tentative because Hastert refused to pay him $ 1.8 million. Has reached an out-of-court settlement. An Illinois Republican agreed to pay the man in 2010.
The lawyer did not disclose the details of the settlement and arrived just a few days ago Civil trial If set to start. It focuses on a new legal question as to whether the verbal agreement that Hastert will pay $ 3.5 million to buy the silence of a teenager abused man is a legally binding contract. Would have been.
Man is only called James Doe It has been in court documents since a contract breach proceeding was filed in the Illinois Court of Yorkville, Yorkville, just west of Chicago in 2016.
Hash money transactions are ultimately Federal criminal case To Hastert five years later, and to public shame on the Republican hardliners, who were second in the presidential succession for eight years as Speaker of the House. In a federal case, prosecutors said Hastert had sexually abused at least four boys between the ages of 14 and 17 throughout his year at Yorkville High School. Hastart was in his twenties and thirties.
Federal prosecutors said the hash money transaction was voluntarily signed during the criminal procedure and the victims did not try to threaten Haster to announce the abuse. The abuse occurred when the victim was a high school wrestler and Haster, now 79, was his coach.
Hastert paid $ 1.7 million in four years, but stopped paying after the FBI asked him in 2014 about illegally concealing huge cash withdrawals from his bank. After Hasten was found guilty of bank charges and sentenced to more than a year in 2016. For a long time after the restriction law expired, he was unable to be prosecuted for sexual abuse.
After Hastort’s ruling, the victim filed a breach of contract that forced Hastort to pay $ 1.8 million unpaid.
Kendall County judge Robert Pilmer announced at a pre-scheduled hearing to discuss the logistics of jury selection that the trial was canceled Wednesday afternoon.
After the hearing, both plaintiffs and Hastort’s lawyers refused to provide details of the settlement, including whether Hastert agreed to pay the man, and if so, some.
Plaintiff Christy Brown was asked if the settlement of the proceedings was a long and difficult journey coder for the client, and told reporters outside the court: … it affects their rest of their lives. “
Mr Brown said the two camps had planned to come up with a written agreement over the next few days and notify the judges that it had been completed by September 24.
“Frankly, I was looking forward to the trial,” Brown said. “I wanted to try this case. I think it was a good case …. But this is a solution that my clients are happy with.”
Brown did not say whether the judge’s recent decision to disclose the client’s name in the trial entered into his decision to settle now.
For both Hastort and the man he abused, the trial could have been emotionally exhausted, and both could have been called to testify.
Questions have been raised more than four years after the proceedings were filed as to whether Hastort’s legal team tried to suggest that Doe was trying to blackmail a former speaker.
Mr Brown said Judge Pilmer had previously ruled that Hastort’s lawyer could not attempt the claim.
“We didn’t expect the term to be used in court. We didn’t expect it to be raised as a defense,” she said.
In a 2016 ruling, Judge Thomas M. Derkin of the U.S. District Court repeatedly accused Hasten before sentenced to 15 months in prison, stating that his abuse had devastated the lives of victims. rice field.
“There is nothing better than including the words” continuous child sexual abuse “and” Speaker of the House “in the same sentence,” Darkin told Hastert.
The judge also monetized Hastert for “individual A” (how a man in a civil case was mentioned in a federal criminal case) falsely alleged sexual abuse to an investigator. He also mentioned the method he said was.
“It was not conscientious to blame Individual A for blackmail,” Darkin said. “He was a victim (of abuse) decades ago, and you tried to make him a victim again.”
Federal prosecutors said it was Hastart who asked not to bring a lawyer to make a $ 3.5 million transaction in writing. They described it as a legitimate transaction between abusers.
Hastort admitted that he had abused men and other athletes in his criminal cases, but in some submissions of civil cases he sometimes appeared to be retreating from his hospitalization.
“I think he said different things at different times,” Brown told reporters. “But I can’t talk about his intentions or motives.”
When asked by an out-of-court reporter on Wednesday whether Hastert actually denied entry, Hastert’s lawyer, John Ellis, declined to comment.
___
Follow Michael Tarm on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mtarm.
[ad_2]