TIFFANY VAN DYKE SPEAKS TO HUSBAND FOR FIRST TIME SINCE PRISON BEATING

By Michael Sneed

The Van Dyke file . . .

Tiffany Van Dyke — who tells Sneed she hadn’t talked to her husband, former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, since his transfer to a medium-security New York correctional facility — finally talked to him Thursday. “He’s OK,” said Tiffany, who was unsure when her husband was actually moved since being attacked last month by prisoners at a federal facility in Connecticut, where he was first sent after leaving Illinois. She now plans to gather all the frequent flyer miles she’s been sent by well-wishers to visit her husband, who is serving a 6-year, 9-month prison sentence for the murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, whom he shot 16 times. Van Dyke is now being held in isolation at the medium-security federal prison in Otisville, N.Y. In a message forwarded to Sneed, Tiffany stated: “I heard the news about the Illinois Supreme Court ruling [rejecting a bid from prosecutors to re-sentence her husband to what could have been a harsher prison term], from a friend who had seen it on Twitter.” “I am very grateful to the Illinois Supreme Court for not increasing Jason’s prison sentence and looking at this case objectively and without bias,” she said. “This has been devastating for our family, especially so for our two daughters. Now we can try to move on. I want to thank our lawyers, Dan Herbert, Tammy Wendt, and Randy Rueckert for all that they have done for my husband and our family, both in the courtroom and in our daily lives.”