“A pedophile cloaked as a would-be role model is deserving of the harshest punitive levels in existence.”
Former Speaker of the House John Dennis Hastert (R), the child-molesting creeper speaker sentenced to over one year for bank regulations violations, was released from custody on July 18, 2017. The defamed and scandal-plagued congressman did not serve time for molesting young boys during his 1970s and 1980s tenure as a wrestling coach at a Chicago high school. Nope, the statute of limitations expired for those potential charges which meant that the only indictable charge was the violation of banking regulations for which he was convicted, culminating in a brief incarceration in a Minnesota-based federal prison.
While sitting in a wheelchair in Chicago’s Dirksen Federal Court building on April 27, 2016, the befallen Republican representative from Illinois sat while a federal judge sentenced him to a 15-month prison stint and a $250,000 fine to be deposited into a victims’ fund. Why banking infractions?
NPR.com reported that Hastert “was a powerful lobbyist after he resigned from Congress — then authorities discovered he was working to conceal decades-old allegations of sex abuse of a [14-year-old] child” and that he “pleaded guilty in October [2016] to illegally structuring bank withdrawals to evade reporting rules for large transactions. That money was used to conceal alleged sexual misconduct — given to a man who says Hastert abused him when he was 14.”
Incredulously, the aforementioned victim (filing court papers as “James Doe”), matured in chronological age and eventually struck an “oral contract” with Hastert which he claims was broken. He filed a Breach of Contract lawsuit against the disgraced congressman, claiming Hastert paid only $1.7 million of the $3.5 million hush money he was promised in exchange for remaining mum.
Language in the “James Doe” litigation affidavits claims “Hastert withdrew cash from multiple bank accounts in amounts intended to keep the settlement secret.” Thereafter, flags went up regarding banking regulations and “When Hastert’s numerous cash withdrawals became known to Federal law enforcement, Hastert falsely claimed that he was being extorted by a former Yorkville High School student and wrestler who threatened to go public with a false allegation that Hastert inappropriately touched him during a wrestling trip decades ago.”
With the appearance of a cornered child molester turning the tides on his accuser, federal agents started digging deeper and “as determined during a lengthy secret investigation of both Defendant’s and Plaintiffs activity, law enforcement determined that the money was used to pay part of an agreed-upon total of $3.5 million to compensate Plaintiff for sexual abuse committed by Defendant when Plaintiff was 14 years old.” Sometimes the intelligent and super-powerful can be outsmarted and dethroned, as well they should.
“Serial Child Molester”
On sentencing day in April 2016, the United States Attorney’s Office released a statement to acknowledge the investigation and case particulars. US Attorney Zachary T. Fardon and federal agents with the FBI and IRS conveyed: “With this case, the Office sought to hold Mr. Hastert accountable for the crimes he committed that could still be prosecuted: illegally structuring cash withdrawals and lying to the government about his motive for engaging in that activity.” Although it does not amount to the severe penalties stemming from child molestation, it at least removed him from his plateau, placed him in prison, and depleted some of his riches.
More importantly, it outed a sexual predator whose predatory forays scarred several youngsters. According to a Chicago Tribune piece, federal investigators tabulated five children who were sexually accosted by Hastert. Prosecutors reflected on Hastert’s memoirs and a curious line he wrote: “…never a sufficient reason to strip away a person’s dignity.” US attorneys point out, “Yet that is exactly what he did to his victims. He made them feel alone, ashamed, guilty and devoid of dignity. While [Hastert] achieved great success, reaping all the benefits that went with it, these boys struggled, and all are still struggling now with what [he] did to them.”
According to a Fox News report, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas M. Durkin called Hastert a “serial child molester” at the April 27, 2016 sentencing hearing. And that was the label for a man’s fall from grace after humble beginnings as a school teacher before climbing the rungs of a political ladder and hobnobbing with hundreds of powerful politicos.
Outset at Release
Despite him serving his sentence, the sad aspect is that disgraced former-Congressman Hastert is definitely beyond his prime and in his golden years. Upon his release from prison, court-ordered stipulations commence, including sex-offender treatment and two years of conditional community-based supervision.
According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), “forensic psychiatrists are often asked to evaluate individuals accused or convicted of sexual offenses for a variety of purposes, including the assessment of dangerousness, risk of recidivism, involuntary commitment, inclusion in a state’s sex offender registry, competency, and criminal responsibility.”
One such tool and method used to measure the intensity of a sex offender and “careful evaluation for deviant sexual arousal patterns” is a penile plethysmograph, otherwise known as phallometry.
Essentially, a penile plethysmograph is clinical instrumentation providing an objective source chronicling “bloodflow to the penis, typically used as a proxy for measurement of sexual arousal” according to Wikipedia. For females, vaginal photoplesmythography is used for examination.
Given his court-ordered sex-offender treatment and conditional supervision mandates, it is highly likely the convicted felon may be intimately subjected to penile plethysmography examinations.
Another piece of technology used to tabulate sex-offender nuances to assist in evaluating a baseline consistency in terms of arousal implications is via polygraphy. Forensic pathologists often employ lie detectors to determine the extent of a sexual predator’s tally of how many victimizations transpired, both those already known as well as those unknown. Stereotypes aside, the plus-one rule usually applies. If there is one then there is likely another. If there are four, then there may be more.
Read psychiatry journals reporting sexual addictions and victimizations of children (pedophilia) to see if your blood boils. It surely will! It is a wicked stain upon human nature, but nothing in comparison to the humiliation endured by the children molested by perverted individuals.
Although he gets to live relatively freely during his golden years, I suspect his sexual abuse victims hardly relate to anything golden and likely live with blemished souls … thanks to a pedophile who once held formidable political office after he molested vulnerable children. A pedophile cloaked as a would-be role model is deserving of the harshest punitive levels in existence. Embarrassment via penile plethysmography does not even compare to the hell these once-trusting kids were subjected to. To think of the filth this elected official had in his metaphorical closet while he helped govern America is astoundingly unsettling.
The potential exists whereby Mr. Hastert somehow fails to comply with one or more of the court-ordered stipulations, resulting in a return to life behind cold steel verticals and a skeletal environment. And to think Hastert was discovered because of mistakes made by transacting hush money.
