Hastert to Alleged Abuse Victim: 'Pay Me'

Claiming any agreement over "hush money" with then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was illegal and invalid, lawyers for the 75-year old jailed Republican want his accuser to pay back $1.7 million. In a motion filed in Kendall County Circuit court late Wednesday, Hastert's attorney said any alleged contract with the accuser is unenforceable.

Even if the court validated a verbal agreement for compensation payments to keep secret allegations of sexual abuse, argued Hastert's lawyer, his accuser broke the contract by talking about it. Hastert made the counterclaim in a civil lawsuit he's facing over the remaining $1.8 million of the total $3.5 million in payments his accuser says they agreed upon.

Lawyers for the accuser, named as James Doe in court documents, issued the following statement to Patch:

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. He admits to agreeing to make payments, but then denies that it is an agreement that he has to keep. His response is predictable and we look forward to entering the discovery phase of the case.

Hastert, who represented Kendall County and surrounding areas for 20 years, is currently serving a 15-month federal prison sentence after pleading guilty in 2015 to charges of lying and skirting banking regulations while making secret payments to his accusers. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for March 8.

The filing can be found below:

UPDATE: Admitted Child Molester Dennis Hastert Settles Hush Money Suit