APNEWS.COM
Ex-House Speaker settles child sexual abuse payments suit
By MICHAEL TARM

YORKVILLE, Ill. (AP) -- Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and a
man who accused him of child sexual abuse reached a tentative
out-of-court settlement Wednesday over Hastert's refusal to pay the
man $1.8 million -- the outstanding balance in hush money that the
Illinois Republican agreed to pay the man in 2010.

Lawyers would not release details of the settlement, arrived at just
days before a civil trial in the case that was set to start. It would
have focused on a novel legal issue about whether Hastert's verbal
agreement to pay $3.5 million to buy the silence of a man he abused as
a teenager amounted to a legally binding contract.

The man has been referred to only as James Doe in court papers since
the breach of contract lawsuit was filed in 2016 in Illinois court in
Yorkville, Hastert's hometown just west of Chicago.

Federal prosecutors said during a related criminal case that sent
Hastert to prison for over a year that the agreement was voluntarily
entered into and that the victim never sought to blackmail Hastert
that he'd go public about the abuse. The abuse happened when the
victim was a high school wrestler and the now 79-year-old Hastert was
his coach.