Amish leader gets 15 years for beard, hair attacks

Amish men and women leave the federal courthouse in Cleveland on Friday after sentencing in a rash of hair-cutting attacks.
Amish men and women leave the federal courthouse in Cleveland on Friday after sentencing in a rash of hair-cutting attacks.

— The leader of a dissident Amish sect was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison for a series of beard- and hair cutting attacks on other Ohio Amish that drew national attention.

Samuel Mullet Sr., 67, the leader, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Cleveland for coordinating assaults that prosecutors argued were motivated by religious intolerance. Fifteen of his followers, including six women, were given lesser sentences, ranging from one year and one day to seven years by Judge Dan Aaron Polster.

The breakaway Amish were convicted last fall under multiple counts of conspiracy and hate crimes, which carry harsher punishment than simple assault. Prosecutors had asked for a life sentence for Mullet. Defense lawyers claimed the government was blowing out of proportion personal vendettas that Mullet harbored against former followers and other critics. They argued that the hair- and beard-cutting was humiliating but not physically injurious and thus did not deserve a lengthy sentence.

The series of five attacks in 2011 spread fear through Amish communities in eastern Ohio. Followers of Mullet broke into homes, restrained men and women and forcibly sheared their victims, sometimes with tools used to clip horse manes. For Amish, descendants of 18th-century German-speaking immigrants, men’s long beards and women’s flowing hair represent religious devotion and cultural identity.

Prosecutors argued that because of the religious symbolism of the attacks, they were hate crimes. Prosecutors asked for the life sentence for Mullet for coordinating the attacks, though by all accounts he did not participate directly.

Although Mullet is an Amish bishop, his strict interpretation of his faith and an abrasive personality had caused individuals to leave his fold and other Amish leaders to isolate him. He presided over a settlement of about 18 families reached by a dirt track near the town of Bergholz.

The trial of the 16 defendants, including three of Mullet’s sons, unveiled a tiny sect in thrall to its leader, who in the name of purity abolished Sunday church services and punished men for ogling non-Amish women by confining them to chicken coops.

Testimony also detailed how Mullet pressured married female followers, including a daughter-in-law, to have sex with him.

Mullet, speaking in court Friday before the sentencing, his ankles in chains and a white beard reaching his chest, said he was being blamed as a cult leader, which he denies. He asked that he be given the punishment for all of the defendants, who include four married couples. “If somebody needs to be punished, I’ll take the punishment for everybody,” he said, according to the website of WKYC-TV in Cleveland. “Let these mothers and fathers go home to their families, raise their children.”

Another defendant, Lester Miller, apologized before the sentencing to his parents, whom he and others, including his wife, Elizabeth Miller, had attacked. He asked the judge to spare his wife, “to put her sentence on me,” so she could care for their 11 children, according to WKYCTV.

Mullet’s lawyer, Edward Bryan, had argued that his client had not directly ordered the attacks and asked for a sentence “sufficient but not greater than necessary.”

But Steven Dettelbach, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, insisted that Mullet held ironclad sway over his followers and that he preached that “Amish hypocrites” should be punished. Moreover, the prosecutor argued and a jury agreed that the attacks involved kidnapping under federal definitions, allowing for a sentence up to life in prison.

Mullet’s community of about 135 has stood by him, vowing to continue living in isolation from other Amish, whom they condemn for drinking, smoking and playing musical instruments.

Front Section, Pages 3 on 02/09/2013

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