CHICAGO (AP) — Federal records show former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert has been released from prison in Minnesota and transferred to a Chicago re-entry facility.
Hastert is nearing the end of a 15-month sentence that a federal judge gave him in April 2016 in a case that revealed accusations he had sexually abused teenagers while coaching wrestling at a suburban Chicago high school.
Federal Bureau of Prisons records Tuesday show Hastert is no longer at the Minnesota federal prison where he was serving his sentence. The records indicate he is at a Chicago residential re-entry management office. Records list his release date as Aug. 16.
The 75-year-old man pleaded guilty to violating federal banking law in seeking to pay $3.5 million in hush money to keep the sex abuse secret.
Hastert is far from putting his child sex-abuse scandal in the past just because he’s been released from a federal prison after serving a little over a year on a related banking conviction.
The disgraced former U.S. House speaker now enters a post-prison phase that includes intensive court-ordered sex-offender treatment designed to ensure he never again poses a risk to children.
Common sex-offender treatments include lie-detector tests to determine how many times the person sexually abused kids. Hastert could be sent back to prison if he doesn’t cooperate fully with the court-mandated treatments.
