After much speculation by those who are, for some reason, interested in Charlie Sheen, the actor finally confirmed to TV “journalist” Matt Lauer what rumors have been hinting at for so long — that he does, in fact, have HIV.

Of course, the apparent fact that Sheen has HIV does not really qualify as news, considering his self-professed sexual dalliances over the years with hundreds of prostitutes and what-have-you. The real news is Sheen’s statement that he “paid out upwards of $10 million to keep the illness a secret” — a confession that he mentioned in passing, and which Lauer didn’t think to follow up on.^[1]

The confession is newsworthy because it raises the question: How exactly did Sheen structure his hush money payments? Did he do it illegally like the former House Speaker Dennis Hastert did?

Hastert, as you might recall, paid millions of dollars in hush money to a former student with whom he had gay sex. He got in trouble not for paying the hush money, which is legal, but for the way he paid it, which is not.

The real journalist Glenn Greenwald provided this useful summary of the case: “Hastert was indicted for two alleged felonies: 1) withdrawing cash from his bank accounts in amounts and patterns designed to hide the payments; and 2) lying to the FBI about the purpose of those withdrawals once they detected them and then inquired with him.”^[2]

Although the second felony charge was dropped, Hastert pleaded guilty to the first, and is currently awaiting sentencing.

So if Charlie Sheen took that hush money out of the bank the wrong way like Hastert did, he could be in big trouble — assuming anyone cares to investigate it further.

Regardless of the financial details of Sheen’s case, it raises a still larger question regarding personal liberty: Should it be a crime to attempt to avoid government surveillance of how you spend your own money?

Sources:

[1] Today.com

[2] TheIntercept.com