Where is Lori Isenberg?
Photo via Coeur d’Alene multiple listing service An empty desk remains in one of the vacant rooms of the former residence of Lori and Larry Isenberg. The home is now the property of Isenberg’s sister, Jamie Devault of California, and is listed for sale for $491,000.
The former Isenberg residence on 8 acres on Bobcat Trail in the Cougar Gulch area.
The living room sits empty at the vacant former home of Lori and Larry Isenberg.
Larry and Lori Isenberg (via Facebook)
By RALPH BARTHOLDT
Hagadone News Network
COEUR d’ALENE — A local businesswoman, who is charged with grand theft in a Coeur d’Alene embezzlement case and cannot be located, gave away her properties to her sister last month.
Laurcene B. “Lori” Isenberg, 64, who is wanted for allegedly embezzling more than $500,000 from a local nonprofit, signed over through quit claim deeds three Kootenai County properties to her sister in California.
In the deeds signed in April, properties including a Cougar Gulch area home at 10019 W. Bobcat Trail assessed by the county last year at $253,330, a property at 9221 Crabapple Court valued by the county at $190,770, and another property at 7098 W. Majestic Ave. in Rathdrum valued by the county $190,641 were signed over to Jamie Devault, Isenberg’s sister in Murrieta, Calif., according to county records.
The Bobcat Trail property, the residence where Isenberg lived with her husband, Larry, is being listed for sale by a realty company for $491,000. Larry Isenberg’s body was found floating in Lake Coeur d’Alene on March 1, 16 days after Lori Isenberg told police he had fallen into the lake from the couple’s boat.
The 8-acre property is vacant, according to photos of the home published by the Coeur d’Alene multiple listing service. Similar properties in the area of the Bobcat Trail Home, with fewer amenities, sold this year for $600,000, according to the MLS.
After Isenberg failed to appear Monday for her arraignment in First District Court, her attorney told First District Judge Scott Wayman his client had been traveling, and the court postponed the arraignment until Friday.
Coeur d’Alene police charged Isenberg with 40 counts of forgery and one count of grand theft for allegedly embezzling a half million dollars, but she was charged in court with one just count of felony grand theft.
The charges came Feb. 26, as the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office was looking into the whereabouts of Larry Isenberg. The cause of his death is under investigation.
Isenberg is accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from her former employer, the North Idaho Housing Coalition, which uses federal grant money, as well as local donations to buy and refurbish foreclosed properties, before selling them as affordable homes.
A civil suit filed May 9 by attorneys for the North Idaho Housing Coalition names as defendants, Lori Isenberg, her sister, Jamie Devault, the Isenberg Living Trust and several small Idaho companies set up last year that list Isenberg or her daughter, Traci M. Tesch, as the incorporator.