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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/05/obituaries/dennis-hastert-dead.html?smtyp=cur&smid=bsky-nytimes


J. Dennis Hastert, a once-obscure Illinois congressman who rose to become the longest-serving Republican speaker of the House before falling from grace in a sex abuse scandal that came to light after he left government, has died. He was 84.

In a statement, the coroner in Kendall County, Ill., said Mr. Hastert died over the weekend of natural causes. No other details were provided.

Mr. Hastert, a former teacher and wrestling coach, was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison in April 2016 for violating federal banking laws, having made millions of dollars in secret payments to cover up sexual misconduct with a male student. He was released in July 2017 and from then on lived out of the public eye despite his earlier prominence in Washington.

Mr. Hastert admitted at his sentencing that he sexually abused teenage wrestlers as young as 14 whom he coached at Yorkville High School in Yorkville, Ill., where he worked from 1965 to 1981. The federal judge who sentenced Mr. Hastert called him “a serial child molester.”