Former Speaker Dennis Hastert Had Stroke

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert suffered a stroke and has been hospitalized since early November. The former speaker had suffered a stroke, received treatment for sepsis, a blood infection, and undergone two surgeries on his back, Green said.

Hastert, 73, has been in the hospital for six weeks, and Green says he might be released “in the early part of the new year”.

In October, Hastert pleaded guilty to the currency violations.

Hastert was charged in May with lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and breaking banking rules in an attempt to pay an unidentified individual $3.5 million in hush money to hide allegations of sexual misconduct.

When FBI agents questioned Hastert about the withdrawals at his Plano, Ill., home in December, he lied by claiming he was keeping the cash he had been withdrawing “in a safe place”, the plea agreement stated.

He is set to be sentenced on 29 February in federal court in Chicago, although that could now be postponed due to his health problems. A plea deal recommends a sentence of no more than six months in prison.

The former speaker is awaiting sentencing in a federal hush-money case. Hastert’s illness is likely to bolster defense arguments that he receive probation or home confinement, he said.

Rumors about Hastert’s hospitalization have been swirling for several days. Pollard could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Hastert did not mention a stroke when talking to a friend on the telephone last week, Dodie Ingemunson told The Associated Press on Thursday.

“We knew he was hospitalized for a while…” “He sounded OK on the phone”, said Ingemunson, of Yorkville.

“As Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert believed in being hard on criminals who commit crimes”, Sablosky wrote in a hand-written letter that was entered in the court record in late October.