CHICAGO _ Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke walked out of Cook County Jail early Thursday afternoon surrounded by a phalanx of uniformed Chicago police officers after a judge gave him a slap-on-the-wrist bond hike for giving media interviews in violation of a longstanding gag order.
Judge Vincent Gaughan tacked on an additional $2,000 to Van Dyke's original $1.5 million bond Thursday morning, saying the officer violated the conditions of his bond when he spoke to the press about the case.
Van Dyke was required to post $200 to get out of custody. He was processed through the jail and released about 12:15 p.m. Thursday, accompanied by the police officers and his father. He got into a waiting white minivan and left without comment.
The special prosecution team had asked that Van Dyke be jailed as punishment for the interviews, saying his public comments flouted a "decorum order" that the judge slapped on both attorneys and potential witnesses in the case.
After he was charged with first-degree murder for shooting Laquan McDonald in late 2015, Van Dyke had his bail set at $1.5 million. He was held for six nights in Cook County Jail until his family was able to post the necessary $150,000 cash _ 10 percent of the bail.
Sheriff's deputies had escorted Van Dyke from the courtroom Thursday after Gaughan raised his bond by just $2,000.
In arguing for Van Dyke to be jailed Thursday, Joseph Cullen, a member of the special prosecution team, attacked the interviews as an effort "to try the case in the press."
Cullen said that Van Dyke's comments directly addressed the self-defense that his lawyers are expected to argue at trial and will interfere with efforts to select a fair jury.
Randy Rueckert, one of Van Dyke's lawyers, noted that the interviews marked the first public comment by Van Dyke in the nearly three years since he was charged.
Rueckert said Van Dyke had withstood an "avalanche" of negative publicity and argued that the officer didn't speak out to sway potential jurors.
In addition, Rueckert pointed out that special prosecutor Joseph McMahon also recently gave media interviews. A profile of McMahon and Daniel Herbert, Van Dyke's lead lawyer, appeared in the Tribune Tuesday.
But Cullen argued that McMahon did not discuss any issue that violated Gaughan's "decorum order"
The lone witness called Thursday by prosecutors was Anne Kavanagh, Van Dyke's public relations strategist. She verified that Van Dyke gave interviews to both the Tribune and a local TV station. She testified she attended both sessions.
Van Dyke, 40, gave a 40-minute interview to the Tribune on Aug. 28 in which he described the shooting as his "darkest day" on the job and expressed his fear of spending the rest of his life in prison. The Tribune previously reported that the conversation was tightly controlled by Van Dyke's attorneys and a public relations strategist who attended the interview.
He did an on-camera interview with Fox-owned WFLD-Ch. 32 the next day.
Prosecutors initially asked the judge to hold Van Dyke in contempt over the interview, though they later said it would be more appropriate to delay that decision until after trial, which began Wednesday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building in Chicago.
Herbert has argued Van Dyke had a First Amendment right to speak with the press, particularly after three years of largely negative coverage. The defense attorney accused prosecutors Wednesday of colluding with McDonald's relatives, some of whom held a news conference Tuesday to urge protesters to be peaceful during and after the trial.
The judge has been unusually strict in controlling the dissemination of information about the case. He has regularly held lengthy discussions behind closed doors and emptied his courtroom of spectators and reporters for several recent hearings in the courtroom.
Both McMahon and Herbert also granted recent interviews with various media outlets for stories about their careers and how they got involved in the case. Neither spoke directly about the shooting or the evidence expected to be presented.
Police dashboard camera video released in 2015 by court order shows Van Dyke opening fire within seconds of exiting his squad car as the 17-year-old McDonald, holding a knife, appeared to walk away from police, contradicting reports from officers at the scene that the black teen had threatened officers with the weapon. The release of the video more than a year after the shooting sparked months of protests and political upheaval.
Attorneys revealed in court Wednesday that prosecutors solicited the FBI's help in issuing a subpoena earlier this week to Kavanagh but she would not agree to accept the subpoena.
Kavanagh told the Tribune she believed the FBI agent was an impostor when he contacted her by telephone from a Minnesota area code, so she reported the call to her local police department.
In court Wednesday, Herbert also shared Kavanagh's concerns with Gaughan.
After McMahon confirmed the caller was a legitimate FBI employee, Herbert declined to accept the subpoena on Kavanagh's behalf. Gaughan, clearly irked by the refusal, told Herbert that Kavanagh would be banned from his courtroom if she dodged the subpoena.
Kavanagh, a former TV reporter, has been a regular presence at Van Dyke's court hearings since he was charged nearly three years ago.
"If she's avoiding getting served," Gaughan said, "she's not coming back in my courtroom."
Kavanaugh, who had not been in court since the interviews became public last week, told the Tribune she would be in court Thursday morning.
"I'm happy to talk to the judge if he wants to talk to me," she said. "Yes, you know, Jason did a couple of interviews. One with the Tribune and one with Fox, but it was made very clear with both media outlets that there were many questions he couldn't answer because it would violate the judge's order. ... The reporters made that clear in their pieces."
