Good Morning America via Yahoo has the story told by an alleged victims sister. It is a tragic story that ends in the death of the victim and a sick Hastert who took it upon himself to show up at the funeral.
In Steve Reinboldt’s 1970 high school yearbook, wrestling coach Dennis Hastert wrote that Steve was his “great, right hand man” as the student equipment manager of the Yorkville, Illinois wrestling team.
But Steve was also a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of Hastert, Steve’s sister said today in an interview with ABC News.
The abuse is said to have lasted through Reinboldts 4 years in high school:
Jolene said she asked her brother why he never told anyone. “And he just turned around and kind of looked at me and said, ‘Who is ever going to believe me?’”
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Jolene said she believes the abuse ended when Steve moved away after his high school graduation in 1971. Reinboldt died of AIDS in 1995. She believes Hastert’s alleged actions irrevocably changed Steve's life for the worse.
“He took his belief in himself and his kind of right to be a normal person,” Jolene said. “Here was the mentor, the man who was, you know, basically his friend and stepped into that parental role, who was the one who was abusing him… He damaged Steve I think more than any of us will ever know.
Her anger boiled over when she said Hastert was so “brash” as to show up at Steve’s funeral viewing. ”
Sadly she tried to expost this 'for decades' and given the perfect opportunity to investigate in 2006 with the Mark Foley scandal, ABC yet again declined to investigate further because 'Hastert denied the charges'. Remember when there was a time when a journalistic outlet would jump at the opportunity to bring down the Speaker of the House with the details of a juicy scandal? Im in my 30's, so I don't... but Im sure it existed.
So for years, Jolene watched helplessly as Hastert basked in fame and power, seated to the left of the president for years in the early 2000s for the nationally-televised State of the Union address.
“I would just watch for a while and then I would just have to get up and leave the room and just, you know, either cry or scream,” Jolene said. “I can’t believe the audacity of that man and how he thinks he will get away with it.”