YORKVILLE, Ill. — The small town that boasted of the role it played in Dennis Hastert’s ascent from high school wrestling coach to speaker of the U.S. House spoke bitterly of him on Saturday, a day after prosecutors detailed allegations that Hastert sexually abused several members of the team.
The Illinois Republican’s reputation for congeniality contrasts with the government’s portrayal of him in a presentencing filing late Friday as a manipulator who exploited his mentor role to prey on young athletes. Prosecutors say he also lied to investigators about why he agreed to pay one alleged victim $3.5 million, falsely accusing the victim of trying to extort him.
The Hastert revelations have made Yorkville seem less idyllic, Mike Piatkowski, a 65-year-old retired UPS driver, said as he watched his grandson, a freshman at Yorkville High School, at a Saturday baseball practice.
“It’s going to be hard to trust anybody, especially with the kids,” he said.
Hastert pleaded guilty last fall to violating banking laws in how he structured his cash withdrawals. Prosecutors said they would have considered abuse charges, but the statute of limitations for bringing such charges expired decades ago.
The court documents detail sexual abuse allegations involving at least four boys that took place at a motel or in the boys locker room at Yorkville High School, where Hastert taught and coached from 1965 until 1981. It describes a “Lazyboy” style chair where Hastert often sat in the locker room with a direct view of the stalls where the boys showered.
Hastert helped put Yorkville on the map, making his unmasking all the more painful, several residents said.
Bob Evans, a former school colleague and friend of Hastert’s, recalled telling someone during a fishing trip in Canada years ago that he was from Yorkville and the person knowing it was the House speaker’s hometown.
“It hurts even more because we were all so proud of him,” he said of Hastert’s fall from grace.
Now, Evans said he and many others in town are asking themselves the same question: “All this time together, what the hell did I miss?”
Hastert left Yorkville High School for the state Legislature in the early 1980s. He entered Congress in 1987 and became speaker in 1999, holding the spot until his retirement in 2007. He now lives near Yorkville, in Plano.
Around 2010, one of the victims confronted Hastert about what he had done to him decades earlier, prosecutors contend. After the two agreed on a total payment of $3.5 million, Hastert managed to pay $1.7 million from 2010 to 2014. They stopped when the FBI questioned Hastert in late 2014 about his massive withdrawals.
Prosecutors recommended Friday that Hastert get up to six months in prison when he is sentenced on April 27.
