A Christian college in Chicago dropped the name of former US House Speaker Dennis Hastert from an academic research center following a federal indictment accusing him of violating bank laws when he paid $3.5-million hush money to cover a "prior misconduct."
Wheaton College has announced that changes will be made to the name of what was known as the J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government and Public Policy, after Hastert resigned from the research center's board on Friday, a day after his indictment, Yahoo! News reported.
"The Wheaton College statement on the Hastert indictment has been updated to indicate that the name of the J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy at Wheaton College has been re-designated as the Wheaton College Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy," the college's statement read.
Hastert has been charged for hiding payments of hush money to a previous male student he allegedly molested when he was still a teacher and coach in Illinois, his previous occupations before entering the world of politics in the early 1980s, according to The Washington Post. He is accused of violating bank laws after he agreed to pay the said ex-student $3.5 million to buy his silence.
The former House Speaker, who graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics from the said college in 1964 and remained an active alumnus over the years, also resigned from the board of directors of Chicago-based futures exchange operator CME Group and Washington lobbying firm Dickstein Shapiro, reported the Chicago Tribune.
Hastert, the longest-serving Republican speaker in the history of the US House of Representatives, is not expected to face molestation charges as authorities do not think there is enough evidence to support a case against him.
The indictment came as a shock to Washington, where he worked as a lobbyist since he retired from Congress in 2007.
"The Denny I served with worked hard on behalf of his constituents and the country. I'm shocked and saddened to learn of these reports," House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement released on Friday.
Hastert was said to have lied to FBI agents who noticed that he was making a series of large cash withdrawals starting in 2010, telling them he withdrew money because he did not feel safe keeping his money in banks.
"Yeah . . . I kept the cash. That's what I'm doing,'' Hastert told agents.
Hastert allegedly schemed to cover up over $950,000 in withdrawals from different accounts, violating federal banking laws that compel the disclosure of large cash transactions.
