Wrestling Hall of Fame Strips Dennis Hastert of Honors

Dennis Hastert has been publicly humiliated, branded a “serial child molester,” sentenced to prison for 15 months and now has had all wrestling honors bestowed upon him revoked by the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

The NWHOF Board of Governors announced the decision Monday after a review concluded that Hastert “acted in a manner considered detrimental to the ideals and objectives and contrary to the mission statement of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame,” according to a news release from the organization.

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“In the 40 years since it was founded, the National Wrestling Hall of Fame has never had to remove an individual who had received one of its highest awards,” said Executive Director Lee Roy Smith in a news release. “When the NWHOF learned of the charges against Dennis Hastert, the ethics committee decided that the United States court system should determine the veracity of the charges. The NWHOF wanted to ensure that Mr. Hastert received due process and his day in court before a course of action was recommended to the Board of Governors.”

The awards that have been removed include: the Order of Merit and the Outstanding American awards presented by the NWHOF in 1996 and 2000, the Outstanding American award presented by the Illinois Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2003, and the Sport of Lincoln Award presented by the Dan Gable Museum in 2009.

Hastert was sentenced to 15 months in prison April 27 for making structured withdrawals from banks in order to pay $3.5 million in hush money to a person he had sexually abused while employed as a teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School.

At his sentencing, Judge Thomas Durkin called Hastert a “serial child molester” and also gave him two years of supervised release.