CHICAGO — Former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert pleaded not guilty Tuesday to federal charges of trying to hide large cash transactions and lying to the FBI about it.
Law enforcement officials have said Hastert was using the money to try to cover up sexual abuse of a male decades ago, when the Republican former congressman worked as a high school wrestling coach and teacher, according to media reports.
Hastert’s attorneys entered the plea on his behalf in a brief arraignment hearing before Judge Thomas Durkin in the federal courthouse in Chicago.
Durkin set a $4,500 appearance bond for Hastert and ordered him to surrender his passport and remove firearms from his property as conditions of pretrial release.
Hastert, 73, stood hunched over and spoke in barely a whisper when he told Durkin he understood the conditions of release. He was wearing a suit and tie and stood between his two lawyers, John Gallo and Thomas Green.
Since he was indicted May 28, Hastert has not made any public statements about the charges or the allegations the payments amounted to hush money.
Dozens of television cameras and reporters jostled Hastert and his team of lawyers as he entered and left the building. Neither Hastert nor his attorneys stopped to answer questions.
According to the indictment, Hastert 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.
Hastert was a high school teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School in the 1960s and 1970s.
Hastert had not been seen in public since the indictment. ABC News filmed Hastert early Tuesday as he and his wife were driving away from their farm in Wisconsin, stopping at a gas station in their black sport utility vehicle and arriving at their home in the Illinois town of Plano, about an hour’s drive from Chicago.
Resigned from lobbying firm, boards
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 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 a 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 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 the identity of another alleged victim has emerged. The sister of a former student at Yorkville High School told ABC News on Friday Hastert had sexually abused her brother, who is deceased.
It was not clear whether Durkin will continue to preside over the case. Durkin said he does not have close ties to the parties, a financial interest or conflict but did make campaign contributions to Hastert years ago through a partner in the law firm where Durkin worked. He has offered to disqualify himself.
Prosecutors and Hastert’s attorneys have until Thursday to decide whether they will waive the disqualification, he said.