Dennis Hastert had a tougher sentence coming

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Fifteen months.

Dennis Hastert caught a break he did not deserve.

Federal Judge Thomas M. Durkin on Monday sentenced Hastert, once among the most powerful elected officials in the nation, to a mere 90 days in prison — if you do the math — for each of the five boys he is alleged to have sexually abused.

Durkin could have sent Hastert away for as long as five years for the technical banking crimes to which he had pleaded guilty. Given the shameful way Hastert on Monday continued to deflect full responsibility for his past actions, we don’t understand why Durkin did not.

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Durkin flatly called Hastert a “serial child molester.” The judge also made it clear that the former House Speaker’s motive in committing the banking violations — to pay hush money to one of his victims — was a legitimate consideration in weighing an appropriate sentence.

And it’s not as if Hastert did a thing to help his cause on Monday.

Through his lawyer, Hastert argued that he is too old and frail to do prison time.

“If you are old when you commit crimes,” Durkin replied, “then obviously you will be sentenced when you are old.”

This, we cannot emphasize enough, is such a key point: Hastert’s worst crimes are not all ancient history. Yes, he undoubtedly molested boys four decades ago when he was a high school wrestling coach. But he also — just two years ago — tried to frame one of those victims as an extortionist. He lied to the FBI and was prepared to destroy an innocent man.

Hastert, amazingly, said he could not even recall molesting one man who testified against him on Monday, Scott Cross, though he said he would “accept” Cross’ testimony. Either Hastert was shading the truth once again or, worse yet, he really could not recall.

It begged a question: Just how many boys did Hastert abuse?

Certainly, Judge Durkin found Hastert’s faulty memory disturbing, saying, “I believe everything Mr. Cross has said.”

And then there was a matter of words. Hastert chose the wrong ones.

“I’m deeply ashamed,” he said at one point. “I know I’m here because I mistreated some of my athletes.” And, at another point, his lawyer referred to “misconduct.”

Hastert was begging the court to go easy on him, but he still would not come clean.

“Nice try, Mr. Hastert,” a follower of the sentencing hearing tweeted, “but you didn’t ‘mistreat’ some of your athletes. You sexually abused minors.”

Only when Durkin put the question to Hastert bluntly — did he “sexually abuse” Stephen Reinboldt — did Hastert finally admit the worst.

“Yes,” he said, after a pause.

Reinboldt died in 1995, but not before he told his sister a secret that had torn him up for years: Hastert had abused him all through high school.

Sexual abuse is a crime with a statute of limitations. Hastert could be charged only with more recent, less serious, crimes. But the damage of sexual abuse lasts a lifetime.

“I want you to know the pain and suffering it caused me then and still causes me today,” said Scott Cross, who struggled to compose himself though he is now 53 years old and a banker. “I always felt what Coach Hastert had done to me was my darkest secret.”

Was it also Hastert’s darkest secret? Did it tear him up inside?

Apparently not.

When Hastert’s lawyers had asked him for names of people who could write letters attesting to his fine character, he had suggested former Illinois House Minority Leader Tom Cross — Scott’s own brother.

Durkin reminded everybody that he was sentencing Hastert for illegally structuring bank withdrawals to avoid federal detection, not for crimes of sexual abuse, and 15 months exceeds the six months recommended by prosecutors. The judge also ultimately did factor in Hastert’s age, 74, and health.

We get all that. But when a former governor, Rod Blagojevich, can be dispatched to prison for 12 years for foolish crimes of greed that frankly hurt nobody, it’s hard to accept the notion of a serial child molester walking free in 15 months.

“The thing I want to do today is say I’m sorry,” Hastert said.

Sorry for what?

He never really said.

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