Jason Van Dyke reading, writing letters from Rock Island as he awaits sentencing

Jason Van Dyke spends 23 hours a day in a small cell in the Rock Island County Jail, writing letters to his family and reading novels, his lawyer said following his first visit with his client since a jury found Van Dyke guilty of murder and aggravated battery.

Lawyer Dan Herbert made the six-hour round trip to Rock Island, where Van Dyke was shipped from the Cook County Jail last Monday morning. Van Dyke's family visited him in the Cook County Jail but as of Friday had not made the trip to Rock Island, a city of about 40,000 residents on the Illinois-Iowa border.

"He looked OK. He's obviously still shaken up," Herbert said. "He still doesn't know what kind of sentence he's looking at."

Van Dyke will return to Chicago for a post-trial hearing on Oct. 31 and is expected to be sentenced later this year. Legal experts say the 40-year-old could face a sentence in excess of 96 years - consecutive 6-year minimum sentences on each of 16 counts of aggravated battery, plus an additional consecutive prison term for whatever sentence Judge Vincent Gaughan hands down for Van Dyke's second-degree murder count.

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