Former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) on Wednesday pleaded guilty to evading bank reporting requirements in connection to a $3.5 million hush money scheme.
Hastert entered his guilty plea in a federal court in Chicago, where District Judge Thomas Durkin said he could face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
{mosads}Federal prosecutors recommended he serve between zero and six months in prison. He will be sentenced on Feb. 29.
The plea is to one count of “structuring,” or withdrawing money out of banks in amounts less than $10,000 to avoid federal reporting rules.
Hastert told Durkin that he knew what he was doing was wrong.
“I didn’t want them to know how I intended to spend the money,” he said in a one-sentence statement.
The indictment of Hastert alleged that he had agreed to pay a person, identified only as “individual A,” to conceal “prior misconduct” dating back to his days as a high school football coach.
Federal officials said the unidentified person was someone Hastert knew at the school, where he taught and coached from about 1965 to 1981, and said the misconduct was of a sexual nature.
In the plea, Hastert said he paid the individual $1.7 million over several decades in order to buy the person’s silence regarding the misconduct.
Hastert was also charged with lying to the FBI about the payoff scheme. That charge was dropped as part of the plea deal.
Hastert, 73, served in House leadership for more than a decade, including seven years as Speaker from 1999 to 2007.
Updated at 11:10 a.m.