Longtime attorney drowns

BAYVIEW - Longtime Coeur d'Alene attorney Sam Eismann, 70, drowned in Lake Pend Oreille on Monday.

According to Kootenai County Sheriff's Lt. Stu Miller, Eismann's death appeared to be an accident. He owned a float home in Bayview and somehow wound up in the lake.

"At this point it looks like an accident," Miller said. "But we don't know if it was caused by a medical event or if he just fell in the water."

Eismann is well known for defending former Shoshone County Sheriff Frank Crnkovich against federal racketeering charges in 1993. Crnkovich was acquitted in his second trial following an earlier trial that resulted in a hung jury.

According to past news reports, Eismann grew up on his father's hops farm in Grants Pass, Ore. As a teenager, he attended a private boarding school in Seattle, and went on to law school at the University of Idaho.

After college, Eismann went to work as an attorney in Caldwell and later was elected to one term as an Idaho state legislator representing Canyon County.

Eismann lost his re-election bid and became an assistant U.S. Attorney for two years before moving to Coeur d'Alene with his wife, Penny, in 1971.

They have two daughters, Treva and Mimi, and a son, Patrick.