Hastert Case Brings Up Painful Memories For Priest Sex Abuse Victim

ILLINOIS
CBS Chicago

April 13, 2016 By Brad Edwards

(CBS) — Two things former House Speaker Dennis Hastert wanted to avoid: jail time and facing those who accused him of sex abuse when they were boys. Wednesday, a judge cleared the way for both.

Hastert will be sentenced in two weeks in his hush money case and, the judge made it pretty clear: He won’t be lenient.

CBS 2’s Brad Edwards reports on how the pain of sex abuse for some, never goes away.

“With the thing with Dennis Hastert right now, there’s a lot remembrance of what I went through,” said Billy Reidy.

Because for him, it was at a school and it was a person in authority.

Starting when he was 15, he says he was abused, “every single day” from 1976 to 1979 by a priest at Loyola Academy in Wilmette. His life changed.

“I had gone through suicide attempts, I had gone through anxiety attacks, lotta depression,” he said.

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