Prosecutors in Dennis Hastert's hush-money case say in a new court filing that the former House Speaker agreed to pay $3.5 million to a victim for sex abuse when victim was 14 years old.
The alleged sex abused happened in the 1970s when Hastert worked as a high-school teacher and wrestling coach outside Chicago.
The court filing Friday is the first time prosecutors have confirmed Hastert paid hush-money to conceal sex abuse of a 14-year-old.
The 74-year-old Republican managed to keep any hint of sexual misconduct quiet throughout a political career that carried him from the Illinois Legislature to the halls of Congress and eventually to the speaker's office, where he was second in the line of succession to the presidency.
Meanwhile, comedian Andy Richter says he remembers the chair facing the showers that Dennis Hastert placed in the boys' locker room at the high school where Hastert coached wrestling before becoming a congressman.
Richter went to Yorkville High School in the 1980s. He tweeted about the chair Friday night after prosecutors mentioned it in a court filing in the former House speaker's hush-money case.
Richter, the sidekick on Conan O'Brien's TV show, says he was "struck by how easy it was" for Hastert to do that. He added: "Nobody questioned it."
