Kendall County Judge Dismisses Sex Abuse Suit Against Dennis Hastert
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A Kendall County judge on Monday tossed out a lawsuit brought by a man who claimed disgraced former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert sexually abused him as a child.
Judge Robert Pilmer tossed the case out, according to court documents.
Pilmer said the statute of limitations had expired on the case.
The accuser, identified only as Richard Doe in court documents, alleged that Hastert sodomized him in a bathroom stall in either 1973 or 1974 when he was in the fourth grade and Hastert was a teacher at Yorkville High School.
The man's lawyer, Kristi Browne, in a statement said she was "disappointed" by Pilmer's decision but was considering to file a motion to reconsider the ruling or to appeal.
The man, if his claims are true, would be the sixth known victim of Hastert's.
Hastert pleaded guilty in October of 2015 to financial crimes associated with attempting to pay hush money to a separate victim.
At his sentencing hearing in April 2016, Hastert admitted he had sexually abused teenage boys.
He was released from federal prison in July after serving 13 months behind bars.
The latest accuser alleges that he was riding his bike along Game Farm Road in Yorkville and stopped at the Game Farm Building — now the Yorkville High School parking lot — to use the bathroom.
While inside a bathroom stall, he claims he heard a male voice "mutter something." That's when the stall door opened and a large man "now known to be Hastert" entered the stall and sodomized the boy, according to the lawsuit Pilmer dismissed.
The alleged victim claims he saw his attacker's face but didn't recognize him. However, he said he spotted Hastert several weeks later at gym class and began to shake and cry. The lawsuit alleges Hastert spoke to the gym teacher, took the alleged victim by the neck, led him into the hallway, dropped to his knees and asked if he had told anyone about the assault.
"Hastert warned plaintiff against reporting the attack, threatening that Hastert's father was the sheriff and, if plaintiff told, his parents would be put in jail," the lawsuit states.
The alleged victim claims he tried to report the assault in the mid-1980s but was threatened with prosecution by then-Kendall County State's Attorney Dallas Ingemunson for slandering Hastert's name.
Browne said the Yorkville school district was named in the lawsuit, not as a defendant, but as a respondent for discovery purposes, and "we believe we should be allowed to go forward with that discovery to investigate the possibility of bringing additional claims against additional defendants."
Hastert already faces a lawsuit in Kendall County brought by the man known publicly as "Individual A," who was sexually abused by Hastert decades ago, when he was a teenager.
Hastert agreed to pay that man $3.5 million in exchange for his silence. But Hastert had only paid $1.7 million before it was discovered by the FBI. It later became central to Hastert's indictment.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2017. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
