By Mansfield Frazier
Ever been to an Amish softball game? While this query might seem like the setup for a punchline, it really isn’t. The Amish, who absolutely love softball, play by the same set of rules everyone else in America follows. And, during the few games I’ve attended over the years at sprawling Amish farms in Ashtabula County, the game is played with the same amount of enthusiasm and skill — there were some really good players on the field — found on sandlots all over the country.
I got to know the Amish through a homebuilder (the guy who built our house) who I occasionally do some marketing and consulting for, and since have used a couple of Amish crews he introduced me to on new home construction projects I’ve personally been engaged in. I know the Amish fairly well, but I really don’t think any outsiders know them all that well.
In a federal courtroom in Cleveland on Friday, Feb 8, 67-year-old Amish bishop Samuel Mullet “was sentenced … to 15 years in federal prison for masterminding a series of beard and hair-shearing attacks against the perceived enemies of his breakaway sect.” Additionally, “15 of Mullet’s followers, including three of his sons, received shorter prison terms for the attacks.”
The beard and hair cutting incidents carried out by members of Mullet’s clan (which has been characterized in the media as a “cult” and “zombies”) against other Amish was in retaliation for other bishops criticizing the wealthy leader of the 18 Old Order Amish families who lived on an 800-acre rural enclave near Bergholz, in Jefferson County, OH.
Viewed as somewhat odd by mainstream culture due to their lifestyle choices — their distinctive manner dress, their eschewing of modern conveniences such as electricity and motorized vehicles and communications devices, as well as their pacifism (they are exempt from military service even during a draft) — they nonetheless are superior craftsmen and farmers … and usually relatively wealthy to boot. At horse auctions around the state it’s commonly known that if an Amish man has his eye on a particular animal, you might as well not bid against him, since he’s going to outbid everyone else, and pay cash-on-the-barrelhead.
The first line of defense taken by Mullet and his followers when the incidents surfaced was that whatever happened was no one’s business but the Amish. They rarely interact with the legal system outside of their own insular communities, preferring to instead solve their disputes among themselves. Mullet was quoted as saying the goal of the hair-cutting was to send a message to Amish in nearby Holmes County that they should be ashamed of themselves for the way they were treating him and his community.
The original dispute, according to federal authorities, had to do with a group of Amish bishops’ refusal to accept Mullet’s excommunication of eight families that had left his Jefferson County community because they disagreed with his authoritarian leadership. Mullet, however, maintained he should be allowed to punish people who break the laws of the church in his own manner, without interference from other Amish. A total of five attacks took place in Ohio over a period of two months.
According to another Plain Dealer article on Oct. 4, 2011, a dozen men showed up at the farm of Myron and Arlene Miller in the middle of the night. They had just completed an attack on another Amish couple in Holmes County. However, due to an attack on a Trumbull County Amish couple a month prior, the Millers were suspicious of their late-night visitors.
When they proceeded to drag Miller outside and attempted to cut his beard (which is a way to shame Amish men, whose religious beliefs call for them to forgo shaving once they marry, and for women to eschew cutting their hair), Miller fought his attackers off and got the number of the license plate on the pickup truck in which they driven. When the driver was questioned by police he led them to the members of Mullet’s clan, who at first boasted about the attacks to Jefferson County Sheriff Fred J. Abdalla.
For some time Sheriff Abdalla and others around Jefferson County had suspected the Mullet clan was different from other Amish. He said that he had been hearing reports that Mullet was “keeping members of his group in chicken coops as punishment and engaging in marathon religious lectures that leave members bewildered and sleep-deprived. I’m really starting to understand the power he has to brainwash these people.”
When rumors of sexual misconduct by Mullet began to surface early on in the investigation they reinforced the belief that the clan had devolved into a cult. However, since there are no laws against cults in this country, the feds, when they stepped into the case, filed conspiracy to commit hate crime charges, the first time the landmark federal 2009 Matthew Shepard-James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act was ever used in Ohio.
Samuel Mullet’s daughter-in-law testified at his trial that he began seducing her with hugs, which progressed to insisting she sit on his lap and give him a kiss. “Then,” according to published reports, “in the fall of 2008, Nancy Mullet said she was awakened in the middle of the night by one of her sisters-in-law: Sam wanted her to meet him in his bedroom.” When Nancy Mullet refused, the sister-in-law went back to Sam Mullet and returned with a message: “Grandpa said I had to go.”
Prosecutors contended that Mullet, similar to many other religious patriarchs throughout history, was twisting and using the bible as justification for engaging in sexual relations with the young women in his flock … as a means of exerting control, and for his own gratification. In an attempt to placate his daughter-in-law, he assured her she was not the only young woman he was having sex with. This behavior is probably what made the hot water Mullet had already landed in all that much hotter.
The notion that some old coot was having his way with young women (and perhaps maybe even underage girls) was more than any federal prosecutor is going to tolerate, and the law will be twisted and shaped to punish such behavior … even if it isn’t a crime under Title 18 of the United States Code.
Steven Nolt, a history professor at Goshen University in Goshen, IN, and an expert on Amish culture, said Mullet’s community operated beyond what is considered the norm for Amish communities. “Given what we know, the technical definition of a cult would probably fit here,” he said.
David McConnell, an anthropology professor at The College of Wooster, concurred and added that Mullet had long been infamous among the Amish. “They prefer to deal with these conflicts internally. The fact that they did go to police shows how serous they viewed these acts,” McConnell said. “I was told the bishops decided to go to law enforcement not because they were humiliated, but because they viewed the potential future threat from Sam Mullet as something that needs intervention from law enforcement.” The professor concluded by stating his Amish friends in Holmes County almost all regard Mullet’s group as a cult.
However, The Rev. Werner Lange, a past pastor at Auburn Community Church, in tiny Newton Falls (he teaches sociology classes at Edinboro University), said the legal action against Sam Mullet and his followers was “without merit” and the entire religious dispute should have been returned to the Amish community for a just resolution. But the Amish clan had no other supporters.
The law allowed for sentences of life imprisonment to be meted to Mullet and 15 of his followers. When they restrained men and women to cut beards and hair they had, in effect, committed kidnapping under federal law.
“Each and every one of you did more than terrorize, traumatize and disfigure the victims,” said U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster at sentencing. “You trampled on the Constitution.” Speaking directly to Mullet the judge said, “Nothing of consequence occurred in that community without your approval. You tried to ram your religious beliefs down the throats of your victims. Sadly, I believe you pose a danger to the community because of the control you hold over the others.”
In addition to the sentence of 15 years for Samuel Mullet, two of his sons Johnny Mullet and Lester Mullet, along with Levi Miller and Eli Miller received seven years. Another son, Danny Mullet, along with Emanuel Shrock and Lester Miller got five years, while Linda Shrock and Raymond Miller each received two years, and Freeman Burkholder, Lovina Miller, Elizabeth Miller, Emma Miller, Anna Miller, and Kathryn Miller: all were sentenced to one year. To minimize the impact on their children, the judge allowed Elizabeth Miller to defer reporting to prison until Kathryn and Lovina Miller are released.
Standing in the packed courtroom the 67-year-old bishop told Judge Polster that he was willing to take sole responsibility for the five separate attacks. “I’m an old man and not long for this world,” Mullet said. “If somebody needs to be blamed for this, and I’m a cult leader, I’m willing to take the blame for everybody.”
Additionally, several of his other sons and sons-in-law who were not charged offered to voluntarily serve a portion of Samuel Mullet’s prison time, an offer the judge declined.
U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach said the unusual propositions gave credence to the prosecution’s theory of the case.
“That defendant after defendant would offer to sacrifice themselves like that was proof of what we have said all along,” Dettelbach said. “Mr. Mullet is a cult leader, Mr. Mullet is a thug, Mr. Mullet is a bully, and Mr. Mullet belongs where criminals belong, in federal prison.”
But Mullet never chopped off a beard or a lock of hair, according to his lawyer Edward Bryan, who said 15-year prison term represented a “de facto life sentence.” Bryan concluded by saying the sentence “is a violation of the 8th Amendment of the Constitution which outlaws cruel and unusual punishment” and vows to appeal. Many in the community agree with attorney Bryan, but most are afraid to express opinions that differ from the feds.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.