Sister of Victim Steps Forward And Reveals Her Brother Was Sexually Abused By Hastert

In an exclusive interview for ABC News, the sister of one of Dennis Hastert’s sex abuse victims, came forward and publicly identified her brother, Steve Reinboldt, as having been sexually abused by the former GOP Speaker of the House.
The abuse occurred while Reinboldt was a High School student and equipment manager for the Yorkville wrestling team. Dennis Hastert was the wrestling coach at the time. Hastert referred to Reinboldt as his “great right hand man” in a 1970 High School Yearbook entry.
Reinboldt, who passed away in 1995 from AIDS, becomes the first publicly named alleged victim of Hastert’s abuse. Reinboldt’s sister Jolene, had tried to expose Hastert’s sexual abuse against her brother in 2006, after the Rep. Mark Foley sex scandal broke, but news organizations were unable to corroborate her story at the time.
Recent revelations that Hastert had lied to the FBI and violated federal banking laws, in order to conceal 3.5 million dollars worth of planned hush money payments to another sex abuse victim, gave Jolene a new opportunity to share Steve’s story.

Jolene gave a compelling interview before ABC News, emotionally recounting how she learned from her brother that Hastert had sexually abused him repeatedly during his High School years. She also noted that Hastert had the audacity to come to Steve’s funeral. Jolene claims she confronted Hastert about the abuse there, but he did nothing but return an icy stare.
Jolene hopes by coming forward, more of Hastert’s victims will know that they are not alone. She noted that Steve hid the abuse, because like so many young victims of sexual abuse at the hands of a “respected” authority figure, he felt nobody would believe him.
Now, however, as Hastert’s secret world of sexually abusing boys begins to unravel, more names may come forward. In addition to the still unidentified “Individual A”, and the now identified late Steve Reinboldt, how many other boys were sexually assaulted by Dennis Hastert?
The former GOP House Speaker was prepared to spend millions of dollars to hide his sexual abuse of minors. Now that his sexual abuse of teenage boys is no longer a secret, Hastert may soon find more victims and their families coming forward to share accounts of his crimes against boys.

If that happens, it may bring some measure of closure to his victims and their families. In addition, if the allegations continue to surface and if they are substantiated in a court of law, J. Dennis Hastert, who once served as Speaker of the U.S. House, will end up serving most of his remaining days in a prison cell.