Ex-Speaker Hastert sues molestation victim to recover hush money

Former Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert is seeking the repayment of $1.7 million in hush money from one of his molestation victims, according to a claim filed Thursday. Attorneys for Hastert, who is serving a 15-month prison sentence in Illinois for violating banking laws related to the payoffs, said the unnamed victim was paid money with the understanding he would not go public. Hastert claims that the deal was invalidated when the now-adult victim talked to investigators in 2014, and that he deserves his money back. Last year, the victim sued Hastert, seeking $1.8 million -- the remainder of the total $3.5 million that Hastert originally agreed to pay for his silence. "Mr. Hastert has decided that rather than live up to his promise to compensate his victim for his molestation and resulting injury, he will ask his victim to pay him," the victim's attorney, Kristi Brown, said Thursday in a statement. At his sentencing last year, Hastert admitted molesting a number of teenage boys between 1965 and 1981. Prosecutors said Hastert could not be charged with those crimes because the statute of limitations had expired.

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