Standoff Ends With Surrender At Clinton Office

At 5:30, another young woman wearing jeans and a black shirt walked out of the Clinton office and was escorted to a police armored car by a SWAT officer. The final hostage, a young man, was released moments before Eisenberg finally gave himself up.

Police said negotiations with Eisenberg were conducted by a veteran female officer, who talked via cellphones and land lines to the hostages, who then relayed their conversations to the suspect. Police said Eisenberg will face state charges of kidnapping and reckless conduct. They said federal charges could follow.

Eisenberg lived in a motel on the outskirts of this riverside manufacturing town of 28,000 little touched by seacoast New Hampshire's high-tech boom but was often seen strolling along Rochester's faded colonial main streets.

This spring, when police launched a campaign to remind motorists to lock their cars by placing fliers on the front seats, Eisenberg took umbrage at what he saw as an invasion of privacy. After finding a flier in his car, he called an impromptu news conference and complained to government officials, local news reports say.

In April of this year, according to a police log, Eisenberg was arrested and charged with two counts of stalking. In June, his car was spotted weaving along Washington Street, and he was arrested and charged with drunken driving.

Five years earlier, Eisenberg had sued the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston and Cardinal Bernard Law, saying that he had been molested by priest at the St. Catherine's Parish in Westford, Mass., in the early 1980s. Court documents depicted Eisenberg as a homeless man of 21, living in abandoned cars at a local junkyard. He told priests at St. Catherine's about the loss of his mother, court documents say, and a violent, alcoholic father. They gave him a cot in the basement, food and help in exchange for odd jobs. But soon, the suit alleges, one priest repeatedly plied him with alcohol and molested him.

In 1996, the Boston Herald reported that a man named Leeland Eisenberg, who was serving a 10- to 20-year sentence for aggravated rape in a Concord, Mass., prison, received a thick voter questionnaire on domestic issues from Robert J. Dole's presidential campaign. Eisenberg completed the survey and sent it to the Herald.

To a question about "vital campaign issues," Eisenberg responded, "Require politicians to be legally responsible for their campaign pledges and prosecute those promises, which result in perjury, fraud, deceit and deception to national trust."

Shear reported from Washington. Staff writers Anne E. Kornblut, John Solomon, Rachel Dry and Elizabeth Williamson; and research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.