Dennis Hastert Sentenced to 15 Months, and Apologizes for Sex Abuse

nytimes.com ^ | April 27, 2016 | MONICA DAVEY, JULIE BOSMAN and MITCH SMITH

[Morgana]

CHICAGO — J. Dennis Hastert, once among the nation’s most powerful politicians, was sentenced on Wednesday to 15 months in prison for illegally structuring bank transactions in an effort to cover up his sexual abuse of young members of a wrestling team he coached decades ago.

In a hearing that was by turns harrowing and revelatory, Mr. Hastert publicly admitted for the first time to abusing his athletes, was confronted in emotional addresses by one of the former wrestlers and the sister of another, and faced a long, scathing rebuke from the judge.

Mr. Hastert, 74, who made an unlikely rise from beloved small-town wrestling coach in Illinois to speaker of the House in Washington, sat slouched in a wheelchair in a federal courtroom here as a judge announced that he was rejecting pleas for probation from Mr. Hastert’s lawyers, as well as prosecutors’ endorsement of a shorter prison stay.

While the sentencing hearing was, technically, about a violation of banking rules and regulations, the proceedings focused squarely on the underlying reason for Mr. Hastert’s puzzling bank withdrawals — his abuse of young wrestlers who had viewed him as a role model.

[SuziQ]

Sounds like the Statute of Limitations had run out on the sexual abuse charges, so they got him on the only thing they could use against him.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Calls are being made again to extend the statute of limitations -- and that's a tough one. I don't know what the answer is.

There are reasons for statutes of limitations, and among the most important is that the more time goes by, the more physical evidence disappears, circumstantial evidence is forgotten, witnesses can't be located, people's memories fail or filter out what really happened. Or even worse, victims' minds can confabulate, a word which means the brain "automatically," without you knowing it, starts to plug in false information to fill out the narrative. The confabulation often --- often --- involves mis-identifying the assailant.

That is a recipe for a proliferation of unsupportable, or even false, charges.

On the other hand, it *can* take years for victims to recover enough even to tell their stories.

And Hastert is clearly guilty as hell.

So... I don't know.