Overview
- Local authorities said Hastert died at his Chicago‑area home over the weekend and that the Kendall County coroner did not assume jurisdiction because the death met criteria for hospice care.
- Hastert rose from high school teacher and wrestling coach to represent Illinois’s 14th District from 1987 to 2007 and served as House speaker from 1999 to 2007, becoming the longest‑serving Republican speaker at the time.
- A federal probe into large cash withdrawals led to a 2015 guilty plea for structuring bank transactions to conceal hush‑money payments and a 2016 sentence of 15 months in prison for banking violations.
- At his 2016 sentencing Hastert acknowledged sexually abusing students he coached decades earlier, but prosecutors said statutes of limitations prevented charging him for sex crimes.
- The conviction and admissions produced lasting institutional consequences, including removal of his Capitol portrait, revoked honors and required sex‑offender treatment, and his death closes a chapter on a once‑powerful political career.