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Monday, February 1, 2016
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Van Dyke attorney says cam untampered The Associated Press
Chicago | A white Chicago police
officer who shot a black teenager 16 times did not tamper with his squad car’s dashcam, his attorney said Friday in response to a Chicago news outlet’s report this week that the device was intentionally damaged. DNAinfo Chicago obtained Chicago Police Department maintenance records through a public information request that show the dashboard video and audio recording device in officer Jason Van Dyke’s vehicle was damaged and repaired at least twice in the months leading up to the October 2014 shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. During the night of the shooting, the system recorded video but did not capture any audio. The squad car video of the McDonald shooting contradicted officer accounts that McDonald lunged at them, setting off weeks of protests, accusations of a cover-up and demands for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s resignation. “Let me be very clear on this, my
The Associated Press
Jason Van Dyke approaches the bench with Attorney Will Fahy during a hearing on the killing of Laquan McDonald Friday, at the George N. Leighton Criminal Courts Building in Chicago. Van Dyke has pleaded not guilty in the death of 17-year-old McDonald.
client had nothing to do with any tampering of an audio,” Van Dyke attorney Dan Herbert told reporters after a hearing on Van Dyke’s charges of first-degree murder. “If this audio was tampered with then it was tampered with by somebody other than
Jason Van Dyke.” The maintenance records show that a day after technicians fixed the device’s wiring in June, it was intentionally damaged. It was fixed another time in October, but on the night of the shooting, 12 days later, the system
did not record audio, the DNAinfo report said. Herbert said no individual police officer is assigned to one specific vehicle, suggesting that another officer could be to blame. Videos from four other squad
cars at the scene also did not have audio. Several experts on the type of equipment commonly installed in police vehicles spoke to The Associated Press in December about the lack of audio and said that it’s plausible for a single squad car to have a glitch, but they could not imagine how an entire fleet of cars would lose audio. Chicago Police conducted an audit that determined that about 80 percent of the department’s cameras did not have functioning audio systems and acknowledged some had been “maliciously” damaged by officers. Van Dyke, who is charged with first-degree murder, has pleaded not guilty. His attorney told reporters Friday that the officer and his family have received death threats. He has no formal protection, but the police department is aware of the threats, Herbert said. He also said he’s still considering making a request for a change of trial venue, because he says it will be “extremely difficult” to seat an impartial jury in Chicago.
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The Associated Press
Dennis Hastert, former U.S. House Speaker, arrives at the federal courthouse in Chicago on June 9 for his arraignment on federal charges that he broke federal banking laws and lied about the money when questioned by the FBI.
Attorney: Hastert near death after sepsis scare The Associated Press
Chicago | A federal judge agreed Thursday to delay Dennis Hastert’s sentencing in a hush-money case after his attorney said the former U.S. House Speaker nearly died in November from severe sepsis just days after changing his plea to guilty. U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin set April 8 as the new sentencing date for the 74-year-old Illinois Republican, replacing Feb. 29, after a defense attorney said Hastert is now largely immobile. Six days after pleading guilty on Oct. 28 to violating bank laws in seeking to pay someone $3.5 million in hush money, Hastert was hospitalized for a blood infection that spread to his spine, lawyer John Gallo said. Prosecutor Steven Block said at the hearing in U.S. District Court in Chicago that the government didn’t object to pushing back sentencing — at least this one time. But he said it shouldn’t be put off indefinitely. “There are victims in this case,” he said. “They deserve closure.” While Block used “victims” in the plural, he didn’t identify who he was referring to or how two or more people may have been victimized.
Asked about the language later Thursday, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office declined comment. The May indictment only mentions an “Individual A” who the former Speaker allegedly sought to pay “to compensate for and conceal (Hastert’s) prior misconduct against Individual A.” Hastert in October acknowledged in his plea agreement for the first time that he did seek to pay someone to hide misconduct dating back decades — to around the time he was a high school wrestling coach. Hastert struggles to get around and the former GOP leader can’t bathe or dress himself, Gallo said Thursday, adding, “But for the 24-hour care, he would be in a nursing home.” In answer to repeated questions from the judge about Hastert’s mental health, Gallo said his client suffered what he called “a small stroke” in the hospital but is “lucid.” Durkin responded that, “other than the physical issue, there should be no reason” Hastert couldn’t help prepare for sentencing, including by talking to court officials as they work up a pre-sentencing report.
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