Hard to believe, but another Illinois politician is in legal trouble. Here's the Chicago Tribune lead:
Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert agreed to pay $3.5 million in apparent hush money to a longtime acquaintance, then lied to the FBI when asked about suspicious cash withdrawals from several banks, federal prosecutors alleged Thursday.
It's unclear what the hush money is about. But the Sun-Times has this tidbit from the indictment:
'...they say “Individual A” lived in Yorkville, where Hastert was a wrestling coach and high school teacher for years, and knew Hastert for “most of Individual A’s life.”'
Reading between the lines there... well, never mind. I suppose this will all come out, whatever it is.
At first Hastert was withdrawing 50 thousand bucks at a time. But after one bank questioned such a big withdrawal, he started withdrawing just under 10 thousand, in order to fly under some mandatory reporting requirements, where banks are legally bound to report large cash withdrawals to our friends, the Feds.
But purposely trying to fly under this limit is yet another crime, called "structuring"! He is charged with one count of that.
When shuffling large sums of cash,
don't assume you have the luxury
of avoiding a federal splash
by getting all structury.
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