ILLINOIS
WGCU
[with audio]
By DAVID SCHAPER
Illinois lawmakers may soon vote to eliminate the state’s statute of limitations on child sex abuse crimes.
The move comes in response to the 15-month sentence given last month to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Although Hastert admitted molesting teenage boys he coached decades ago, he could only be sentenced for a financial crime related to his efforts to pay one of his victims millions of dollars in hush money to cover up the crime.
In Hastert’s case, Scott Cross told a Chicago federal courtroom last month what he called “his darkest secret”: that Hastert, his high school wrestling coach, had molested him in 1979. It was a secret Cross held for 36 years.
The federal judge in the case expressed frustration that he could only sentence the former House speaker for providing hush money payments because the statute of limitations on the sex abuse had run out long ago.
“I am also frustrated,” Chicago U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon said after Hastert’s sentencing hearing. “I wish Mr. Hastert had been called on the carpet in 1968, and we’d all be better for it.”
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