Prosecute this person is they appear to believe this person is a victim of sexual abuse by denny hastert. that certainly doesn t make him a very appealing defendant. you don t want by and large to be prosecuting people who are victims of horrible crime. let me ask tom if afuentes, this individual individual a, received already about $1 million in cash. is he allowed to keep the money? i don t know wolf and i don t know if we have to what degree say, of sexual misconduct occurred between hastert if it did occur, the allegation it may have occurred or just falsely accused and that was enough to politically want to avoid the embarrassment for somebody in public office with a high pub position as well as being a lobbyist. i don t know the answer to that. do you have the answer, jeffrey? i think it s likely he will be allowed to keep the money. i mean one of the many peculiar
There is an implicit threat in an indictment that is spelled out this way. which is if this case goes to trial, the justice department is saying to denny hastert, you can expect that all of the accusations about sexual abuse will be aired in public. in a trial. so there is an implicit threat that you better plead guilty. you better end this process right away. or all this very dirty linen is going to be aired in public. and frankly, when you have a 73-year-old defendant who could actually get prison time if this case goes to trial, very unlikely to get prison time if it et cetera innds in a plea. i think a plea bargain is a likely outcome. and this whole notion of extortion there could be an extortion case what are you hearing, pamela? we re hearing that was something initially federal authorities were pursuing. and we re hearing that s not
Then you know what kind of threat was being made against him? just to expose him, embarrassment publicly. does that qualify as maybe a physical threat or a threat of you know we ll kill you if you don t pay? that type of thing. i think that so far we don t know there s an indication of charges against the person receiving the money. jeffrey, go ahead. if this case does go to trial, the defense almost certainly will be extortion. that hastert s lawyers will argue, look denny hastert was confronted with someone coming up with a horrible old false accusation. so to protect his family he gave him all of this money. now, that s a, perhaps, plausible defense. it s got a lot of problems. why did you lie to the fbi? why didn t you just go to the police like david letterman did in a roughly, not exactly, roughly parallel situation? but that almost certainly will be the defense, if the case goes to trial. another reason why the fbi certainly wouldn t want to
Things about this case if denny hastert had simply written a check to individual a, there would have been no crime, no no harm no foul and i don t think anyone would have even known about this whole situation. what made this criminal was his structuring, allegedly, of the transactions to avoid the bank reporting requirements and then lying to the fbi. if he had simply written a check, no one would have known. and this story would not be would not be public at all. pamela wanted to weigh in? reporter: just to jeffrey s point. if you read through the indictment it only says misconduct doesn t go further. a question i asked, why is that? i m told because the charges he s facing they don t really have anything to do with the actual misconduct. federal authorities are saying it s what he did after that to cover it up. a point make there. why now jeffrey, the indictment coming now? well, because these currency