Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, 73, appeared before U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Durkin with his attorney Thomas Green, a Washington D.C. lawyer who is a veteran of high-profile government investigations including Watergate, Iran-Contra and Whitewater.

Former Congressman and House Speaker Dennis Hastert remains out of the public eye after pleading not guilty in Chicago June 9 to federal charges that he illegally structured bank withdrawals to hide payments he was making to someone who knew of alleged misconduct from his time as a teacher and coach at Yorkville High School more than 40 years ago.

The former Republican congressman hid the withdrawals and payments and then lied about those to the FBI, according to federal authorities.

Hastert, 73, appeared before U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Durkin with his attorney Thomas Green, a Washington D.C. lawyer who is a veteran of high-profile government investigations including Watergate, Iran-Contra and Whitewater.

Former Congressman and House Speaker Dennis Hastert remains out of the public eye after pleading not guilty in Chicago June 9 to federal charges that he illegally structured bank withdrawals to hide payments he was making to someone who knew of alleged misconduct from his time as a teacher and coach at Yorkville High School more than 40 years ago.

The former Republican congressman hid the withdrawals and payments and then lied about those to the FBI, according to federal authorities.

Hastert, 73, appeared before U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Durkin with his attorney Thomas Green, a Washington D.C. lawyer who is a veteran of high-profile government investigations including Watergate, Iran-Contra and Whitewater.

Durkin, brother of Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin, will remain as judge despite having ties to the Republican Party and being a former donor to Hastert’s campaigns. Durkin offered to recuse himself from the case unless both sides offered to waive that request. On June 11, the prosecution and defense said they had no issues with Durkin staying on.

Hastert’s court appearance lasted less than 30 minutes and the former congressman reportedly waived the reading of all charges against him responding only that he did understand the charges.

He was ordered by the court to submit to a DNA test, turn over his passport and remove all firearms from his property in Plano as conditions of his release, according to reports.

Green asked the judge to allow additional time to remove the firearms as Hastert’s sons keep them in safes on the former congressman’s property. One son is reportedly traveling out of the country and the other son lives in Chicago where the gun laws are stricter than in Kendall County.

Hastert was released on $4,500 bond and ordered to stay in the United States. He and Green departed the courtroom at the Dirksen Federal Building without taking any questions from the mob of media that were present at the hearing.

Since the indictment was announcement May 28, Hastert has remained quiet, not responding to media inquiries about the federal charges and allegations about the misconduct.

Hastert made the withdrawals to make payoffs totalling $3.5 million to a former male student who claimed he knew of Hastert’s “misconduct” during his years as a teacher and wrestling coach from 1965 to 1981.

According to reports of the indictment, Hastert began taking out $50,000 in cash from several different bank accounts in June 2010 and giving those funds to the former student, named in the indictment as Individual A, every six weeks, for a total of 15 times.

The name of Individual A has not been revealed nor has any student or students he had allegedly abused come forward or been named by legal authorities.

The sister of an alleged victim did come out last week publicly stating that her brother was sexually abused by Hastert multiple times while a student at Yorkville High School. Jolene Burdge of Billings, Mont., said in an interview with ABC News June 5 that her brother Steve Reinboldt, a 1971 graduate of Yorkville High School, told her in 1979 that Hastert had sexually abused him while Reinboldt was the student manager for the school’s wrestling team that Hastert coached.

Burdge said in the interview the FBI has talked with her about her allegations. Reinboldt, who was gay, died in 1995. Reinboldt never came forward with his story, his sister has said, because he felt no one would believe him.

Hastert, a Republican, was first elected to congress in 1987 and served six terms before being elected Speaker of the House in 1999, serving in that role through January 2005. Hastert presided over the impeachment proceedings of then President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and was one of Clinton’s most outspoken critics during that time.