Wheaton College announced Sunday that Dennis Hastert's name is no longer associated with its Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy, following federal charges against the former U.S. House speaker and the school's decision to accept Hastert's resignation from the center's board. 
 
 The college announced the decision in an updated news release reacting to a federal indictment Thursday. The indictment accuses Hastert of agreeing to pay $3.5 million to a longtime acquaintance to cover up wrongdoing in his past, then lying to the FBI when asked about the suspicious cash withdrawals from several banks. 
 
 "The Wheaton College statement on the Hastert indictment has been updated to indicate that the name of the J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy at Wheaton College has been re-designated as the Wheaton College Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy," according to the college's statement Sunday. 
 
 The Tribune reported Friday that federal law enforcement officials said Hastert was paying an individual from his past to conceal sexual misconduct. The misconduct dates to Hastert's time as a high school wrestling coach and teacher in Yorkville, one official told the Tribune. 
 
 Hastert attended Wheaton College as an undergraduate student and graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics in 1964. 
 
 He remained an active alumnus over the years, and more than seven years ago, the college named the Hastert Center after him. 
 
 According to its website, the center promotes ideas such as free enterprise, limited government and individual responsibility through classroom teaching, research and public discussion. 
 
 The Wheaton College Archives & Special Collections includes a collection of Hastert's papers, according to the college. What might become of the collection could not immediately be addressed Sunday, a college spokeswoman wrote in an email. The papers are organized into six series — Committee/Subject Files, House Leadership/Speaker files, Correspondence, Personal/Office files, Press files, and Media — and several sub-series, according to the college. 
 
 Arraignment for Dennis Hastert, Former U.S. House Speaker, is scheduled for June 4, 2015, in a Chicago federal court. (WGN TV) Arraignment for Dennis Hastert, Former U.S. House Speaker, is scheduled for June 4, 2015, in a Chicago federal court. (WGN TV) SEE MORE VIDEOS 
 
 A woman from Munster, Ind., who was on campus Sunday visiting the Billy Graham Center Museum said, "I don't know if anything has been proven yet, so you have to keep that in mind. But if it is proven to be true, Wheaton College needs to protect the integrity of what it stands for." 
 
 Inside the center Friday morning, a black plaque marked an October 2012 commendation for Hastert from the college's board of trustees that said many students had benefited from the center's courses, lectures, internships and research opportunities. 
 
 On the plaque, the board thanked Hastert for donating some of his papers to the center and for helping to secure grants and gifts — noting the center had surpassed its initial $10 million goal for construction, programs and endowment. 
 
 The college issued an initial statement Thursday saying it "was saddened to learn of the allegations against" Hastert. 
 
 On Friday, the college said the center would continue to operate "in conformity with the highest ethical and academic standards of excellence and integrity." 
 
 Sunday's announcement was just one of several ripple effects for Hastert following Thursday's indictment. 
 
 The day charges were announced, Hastert resigned from the board of directors at the Chicago-based futures exchange operator CME Group, a spokesman there said. Later that day, a spokesman at the Washington lobbying firm where Hastert had been working, Dickstein Shapiro, confirmed that Hastert had resigned his position as co-leader of the firm's public policy and political law practice. 
 
 Also, a spokesman for Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan said last week that a $500,000 proposal to put a statue in the state Capitol honoring Hastert was shelved, but that the decision had already been made because of budget concerns. 
 
 That spokesman, Steve Brown, would not say Thursday whether the effort is now scuttled. 
 
 Anne Halston and freelance reporter Linda Girardi contributed. ||||| May 28, 2015 
 
 Because Wheaton College is home to the J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy, the College has received a number of requests for comment on today’s announcement of an indictment against former U.S. Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert. 
 
 Wheaton College was saddened to learn of the allegations against former U.S. Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert. We do not have further comment at this time. 
 
 May 29, 2015 
 
 Wheaton College has received and accepted the resignation of Wheaton alumnus and former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives J. Dennis Hastert from the Board of Advisors of its J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy. 
 
 The Center was established to pursue goals compatible with the mission of Wheaton College. Specifically, the mission statement of the Center is “to advance the training of Wheaton College students and the greater community in the understanding of market economies, representative democracies, limited government, and the redeeming effects of the Christian worldview on the practice of business, government and politics.” 
 
 The Center will continue to serve these purposes in conformity with the highest ethical and academic standards of excellence and integrity, in conformity with our institution’s identity. 
 
 The College respects Mr. Hastert's distinguished public service record and the due process being afforded him pursuant to the charges that have been filed against him. 
 
 May 31, 2015 
 
 It is with sadness and shock that the Wheaton College community learned of the indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice of alumnus and former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives J. Dennis Hastert, and of his resignation from the Board of Advisors of the J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy at Wheaton College. 
 
 In light of the charges and allegations that have emerged, the College has re-designated the Center as the Wheaton College Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy at this time. 
 
 The Center will continue in its mission "to advance the training of Wheaton College students and the greater community in the understanding of market economies, representative democracies, limited government, and the redeeming effects of the Christian worldview on the practice of business, government and politics." 
 
 Wheaton College serves Jesus Christ and advances His Kingdom through excellence in liberal arts and graduate programs that educate the whole person to build the church and benefit society worldwide. The College has not been implicated in or associated with any of the allegations in this matter. 
 
 We commit ourselves to pray for all involved, including Speaker Hastert, his family, and those who may have been harmed by any inappropriate behavior, and to continue the work and mission of the Wheaton College Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy. ||||| Play Facebook 
 
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 Wheaton College in Illinois on Sunday removed the name of former Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert from one of its programs after the 1964 graduate of the school was indicted on charges he lied to authorities about illicit payments he made to a man from his past. 
 
 Two days earlier, Hastert, who donated his Congressional papers to the school after he retired from government, resigned from the conservative Christian college's board of advisers. 
 
 The J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy at Wheaton College was "re-designated" the Wheaton College Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy "at this time," the college said in a statement. 
 
 The school said in its statement that it would "pray for all involved, including Speaker Hastert, his family, and those who may have been harmed by any inappropriate behavior." ||||| Indicted former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert was paying off a man to conceal sexual abuse from decades earlier, when Hastert taught and coached at a high school in Chicago’s far west suburbs, federal law enforcement sources said Friday. 
 
 Federal agents also have interviewed a second person who raised similar allegations of sexual abuse against Hastert that corroborated the account of the initial alleged victim, another law enforcement source said. 
 
 The new details came a day after federal prosecutors in Chicago announced the stunning charges accusing the Republican powerhouse of paying more than $1.7 million in apparent hush money to an acquaintance who once lived in Yorkville, where Hastert taught and coached wrestling from 1965 to 1981. 
 
 One law enforcement official said Hastert was making the payments to conceal his past relationship with the man, identified in the indictment only as Individual A. 
 
 “It was sex,” said the source, who would not speak publicly about the charges. 
 
 Another federal law enforcement official, when asked if the misconduct involved sexual abuse, said, “That’s correct.” 
 
 A third law enforcement official said Individual A had been a student at Yorkville High School but did not know if he was on the school’s wrestling squad coached by Hastert. Agents spoke with a second person who raised similar allegations of abuse against Hastert, the official said, but investigators didn’t find any “pattern of payments” to that individual by Hastert. 
 
 “But the case is still going on,” the official said. 
 
 The revelations still left many questions unanswered and a brewing media frenzy Friday as reporters mined clues in the government’s carefully worded, seven-page indictment that described Individual A as someone who has known Hastert nearly all the person’s life. 
 
 Adding to the intrigue, Hastert wasn’t seen or heard from for a second day, even as reporters swarmed outside his sprawling Plano estate, knocked on doors to his offices and interviewed his former colleagues and constituents. 
 
 And no attorney had publicly emerged on behalf of Hastert to deny the charges, unlike most high-profile cases in which defense lawyers quickly come forward to profess a client’s innocence to the media or say they were looking forward to their day in court. 
 
 The former longtime legislator’s bios disappeared from websites of two entities he resigned from Thursday soon after the charges were announced — the Chicago-based CME Group, which owns both the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade, as well as Washington lobbying firm Dickstein Shapiro. 
 
 He also resigned from the board of advisers to Wheaton College’s public policy center, named in honor of Hastert, who is an alum. 
 
 Authorities did not arrest Hastert when the indictment was unsealed, instead allowing him to come in on his own at a later date for an arraignment at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago. A date for that hearing had not been set as of Friday. 
 
 In a routine move Thursday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Geraldine Soat Brown ordered that when Hastert appears in court, he be freed pending trial without having to post any money unless prosecutors object, court records show. 
 
 The indictment of Hastert, 73, marks the most significant charges brought since U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon took office in 2013. But in keeping with Fardon’s low-key style, the blockbuster announcement wasn’t made at a news conference but was issued late Thursday afternoon by news release. 
 
 Given Hastert’s stature, the indictment needed approval at the highest levels of the U.S. Justice Department. Still, the charges were kept under wraps even within the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, where veteran prosecutors said they were surprised to learn Hastert was a target less than an hour before the charges were made public. 
 
 Instead of the bribery counts more typical for high-profile cases involving politicians, the indictment of Hastert centers on an obscure charge, the illegal structuring of bank withdrawals over 4 1/2 years to allegedly conceal the $1.7 million in payoffs. 
 
 Hastert also was charged with lying to FBI agents who questioned him about the withdrawals in December. 
 
 The case was randomly assigned to U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin, a former federal prosecutor whose brother, Jim Durkin, is the Republican leader of the Illinois House. 
 
 In 13 years at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, Durkin rose to first assistant and prosecuted numerous high-profile cases, including the trial of former Illinois Gov. Dan Walker on bank fraud charges. Walker was convicted and served 18 months in prison. 
 
 Durkin also helped lead the landmark Operation Gambat probe of 1st Ward corruption and mob ties, winning convictions of former Ald. Fred Roti, former state Sen. John D’Arco and former Cook County Chancery Court Judge David Shields through the undercover work of corrupt lawyer Robert Cooley. 
 
 Robert Loeb, a veteran criminal defense attorney and former Cook County prosecutor, said he saw no obvious ethical issues with Durkin’s family connections to state Republicans but that there was always the possibility of a recusal due to an “appearance of impropriety.” 
 
 “If it would taint how the public might view the integrity of the process, then somebody might want to think about getting it moved to a different judge,” Loeb said. 
 
 According to the indictment, from June 2010 to April 2012, Hastert made 15 withdrawals of $50,000 each from bank accounts he controlled and paid Individual A that cash about every six weeks. After bank representatives questioned Hastert about the withdrawals in 2012, he began illegally structuring the cash withdrawals in increments less than $10,000 to evade bank reporting requirements, the indictment said. 
 
 Between July 2012 and December 2014, Hastert made in excess of 100 withdrawals, all under $10,000 each, the indictment charged. Those withdrawals totaled some $952,000 in cash, prosecutors alleged. 
 
 When questioned by FBI agents in December about the withdrawals, Hastert said he was trying to store cash because he didn't feel safe with the banking system, according to the charges. 
 
 “Yeah ... I kept the cash. That's what I'm doing,” Hastert was quoted as saying to the agents. 
 
 Serrano and Phelps reported from the Tribune’s Washington bureau. Meisner is a Tribune reporter in Chicago. 
 
 jmeisner@tribpub.com 
 
 Twitter @jmetr22b
– The J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy at Wheaton College has taken Hastert out of its name as the scandal surrounding the former House speaker continues to grow. Hastert, who graduated from the Illinois college in 1964, resigned from the conservative institution's board of advisers on Friday, reports NBC News. The center will continue to advance the understanding of issues, including the "redeeming effects of the Christian worldview on the practice of business, government, and politics," and Wheaton respects Hastert's "distinguished public service record and the due process being afforded him pursuant to the charges that have been filed against him," the college said in a statement. It isn't clear what will happen to the collection of papers Hastert donated to his alma mater, reports the Chicago Tribune, which notes that the scandal has had several other "ripple effects" for the former speaker. He has stepped down from his job at lobbying firm Dickstein Shapiro, which he joined after leaving the House in 2008, and he has also left the board of directors at futures-exchange company CME Group. A plan to put a $500,000 statue of Hastert in the Illinois state Capitol is also on ice. A spokesman for Michael Madigan, the Democratic speaker of the state House, tells ABC News that Hastert called a month ago asking for the project to be shelved because it was a "not wise use of state funds."