Hostage suspect depicted as desperate

The man accused of taking hostages at a Hillary Clinton campaign office in Rochester last week watched impassively during his video arraignment yesterday as he was portrayed alternatively as a sick man desperately seeking psychiatric help and a manipulative longtime criminal.

The judge ordered Leeland Eisenberg held on $500,000 cash bail on six felony charges and ordered a psychiatric evaluation for him.

"I think it's very, very important to keep this man under lock and key for now until we get to the bottom of his mental health problems," Rochester District Court Judge Daniel Cappiello said.

Strafford County Attorney Janice Rundles asked for the high bail, saying Eisenberg, 46, has a long criminal record, including two rape convictions, and would be a threat to the public.

She said he was sentenced to 10 years for rape in Worcester, Mass., in 1985 but apparently escaped the next year and committed another rape. He was sentenced to 11 to 20 year for that, she said.

Massachusetts officials said Friday that Eisenberg was released from prison in March 2005 after completing a sentence, but state law prevented them from giving details of the conviction or charge.

Rundles said his record in New Hampshire began that year when he was charged with failing to register as a sex offender. He was convicted the following year, she said.

Rundles said Eisenberg has two Social Security numbers and had been known previously in Massachusetts as Ralph E. Woodward.

"What we have here, in the state's view, is a man who has a trail of victims in his past," she said.

His public defender, Randy Hawkes, portrayed Eisenberg as a man at the end of his rope emotionally after being repeatedly turned down when he sought help.

"He asked me to extend his profound apologies," he said, calling the event a "desperate plea."

Hawkes also said Eisenberg, whom he said had repeatedly attempted suicide in the past, wanted to thank the police for not shooting him, even though he asked them to on Friday.

Eisenberg, wearing a short-sleeved shirt over a T-shirt, hung his head slightly and did not look at the camera as he appeared in a grainy, live video link from the county jail in Dover. He did not speak.

Eisenberg will not enter pleas until the case reaches Superior Court.

He allegedly took six hostages, including an infant with mother, at Clinton's storefront office in Rochester on Friday, showing them what he said was a bomb strapped to his chest. Authorities said it turned out to be road flares.

No one was hurt in the 5½-hour drama, which ended when state police negotiators persuaded him to surrender.

The police said Friday there had been five hostages, including the infant. In court, Rundles said there had been six, including a previously undisclosed 18-year-old man released soon after the incident began.

She and the police say Eisenberg ordered everyone to the back of the office and told them to lie down. When the hostages asked him to let the woman and her baby go, he agreed in the first few minutes, Rundles said. She said he agreed soon afterward to release the 18-year-old because of his age. The last three hostages dribbled out as the afternoon wore on.

Hawkes said Eisenberg's efforts to get help included calling Gov. John Lynch's office on Thursday. Hawkes said his client was referred to his local congresswoman's office, where he was told it was a state matter.

Yesterday afternoon, Lynch's office called that account "absolutely not true." Eisenberg spoke to a receptionist and got a phone message back from a staffer who helps constituents resolve problems, Lynch spokesman Colin Manning said. But that staffer never spoke to Eisenberg and he was not referred to the congressional office, Manning said.

Eisenberg also contacted the state Department of Health and Human Services, where he was told there was nothing the agency could do immediately, Hawkes said. He said an agency employee urged him to apply for Social Security disability benefits, but acknowledged that would take time. (next page »)