Former WNY teacher sentenced for lying

ALBANY, N.Y. - A former western New York teacher has been sentenced to five years of probation for lying to the state about a past conviction involving a child's death.

Sixty-year-old Howard Eisenman of Springville could have received up to four years in prison at his sentencing Tuesday in Albany County Court, where he pleaded guilty in January to a charge of offering a false instrument.

Authorities say Eisenman spent six years in prison for manslaughter after a girlfriend's 2-year-old died while he was demonstrating karate on her in Island Park in 1973.

But in seeking work in the Gowanda school district south of Buffalo in 2004, he told state education officials that the conviction stemmed from a reckless driving accident that killed a
friend.