Amish in the News

As Dakota O'Leary reported last month, a number of members of an Ohio Amish community, convicted of hate crimes in hair and beard cutting attacks are entering federal prison. The Associated Press reported this weekend that the prisoner's departure will leave nearly three dozen children without one or both parents.

IN — An 18-year-old Fort Wayne man was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison for his role in a plot to rob members of the Amish community in Adams County.

Amish schoolchildren held their end-of-school celebration early yesterday so their parents could attend before they are jailed for beard-cutting. Nine members of the Ohio Amish sect led by Samuel Mullet Sr are already in prison after being convicted of the hate crime against rival followers, and five more will join them this Friday. Four women and one man will start jail terms of between one and seven years, leaving nearly three dozen children without one or both parents for the duration of their sentences.

PA — At least 200 calves were killed in a devastating barn fire that ravaged an Amish farm in Metal township, PA on Wednesday afternoon. According to the Chambersburg, Pa., Public Opinion, fire crews arrived on the scene too late to save the barn or animals. The building was mostly collapsed and there wasn’t much left.

Adam Lanza apparently was a student of Charlie Roberts. The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter had read about the Nickel Mines Amish school shooter. He identified with him. And he followed in his violent footsteps.

KENTON, Ohio - The Kenton-Hardin Health Department said Tuesday night the way two Amish families are living jeopardizes the health of their neighbors. "There's a potential there for a lot of people to get sick and our job is to prevent things from happening." said Shane Lotts, the Environmental Director for the Kenton Hardin Health Department. The health department voted to uphold a decision by the board that said two families need to vacate their homes because their sewage systems were not up to code.

KENTON, Ohio — Amish from northwest Ohio are promising to turn out in force this week for a meeting of a county health board seeking to evict two families from new homes that lack the required modern wells and septic systems. Last summer, the Kenton-Hardin County Health Board said it would start enforcing rules that any new home must have a proper well and septic system - something the simple-living, outhouse-using Amish have never had to do. Health inspectors have not forced existing Amish homes to change

New York — As the number of Amish families continues to rise in St. Lawrence County, law enforcement agencies are looking for ways to reduce accidents between buggies and motor vehicles on North Country roads. It’s a task officials are finding difficult, even though people on both sides understand the severity of the problem.

LANCASTER, PA — The former wife of the man who opened fire inside an Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County is breaking her silence for the first time since that tragic day.

Sixth-graders from the Ohio Amish community at Wise Elementary School in Holmes County are better equipped to save family and friends from choking deaths. Twenty-eight Amish children learned the correct way to perform the Heimlich maneuver recently as part of a Heimlich Heroes curriculum demonstration taught at their school.

BELLEVUE, MI — Ten people were hurt, two possibly critically, when a northbound van slid off I-69 two miles north of N Drive North. Calhoun County Sheriff Department deputies reported the accident at 9:08 a.m. They said the van went out of control on icy pavement.

WARREN, Ohio - The attorney for the Trumbull County Amish man accused of raping young girls has entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity on his client's behalf. Daniel Miller is charged with 17 counts of rape, gross sexual imposition and sexual battery.

The Amish in the US have a genetic mutation that causes mental retardation, researchers have found. Scientists at the Bellvitge Institute for Biomedical Research (Idibell) and the University of Barcelona have said that inbreeding has led the strict religious community to develop a gene that holds back mental development.

Lydia Zook, bundled in a plain, black coat over a lavender linen dress, steps out of her family’s renovated barn. A few strands of dark brown hair streaked with gray peek out from beneath a teal kerchief headdress. “I stay inside a lot during the winter,” the native Pennsylvanian says with a laugh.

CLEVELAND, OH — The eight men convicted of an Amish hate crime in Ohio have been assigned to prisons scattered across the United States, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons said. Bishop Samuel Mullet, 67, leader of the Bergholz, Ohio, group who was prosecuted with 15 of his followers for a series of beard- and hair shearing attacks on perceived enemies of the breakaway sect, was notified last weekend he had been "re-designated" to a prison in Texarkana, Texas.

LOYSVILLE, PA — A 5-year-old Loysville girl was flown to Penn State Hershey Medical Center after a car crashed into a horse and buggy in Perry County, according to state police in Newport. Police said the girl was one of four people in the buggy when it was struck Monday afternoon on Route 850 near Fisher Hill Road in Northeast Madison Township.

Last week, I had a story on an Amish trade show. It was mostly about power tools, but there was another other thing that we didn't mention in the online version: The booth selling computers to the Amish.

MONTGOMERY, PA — A nine-year-old Amish boy was pronounced dead following a barn accident on Monday.

Lancaster, PA — Lebanon Levi's sidekick is in legal trouble after a state constable nabbed him for a stack of criminal warrants, according to officials. However, John Schmucker's attorney said the fugitive arrest won't keep the "Amish Mafia" star off the small screen.

Although there is no shortage of extraordinary sights at the Wall, the visit by a group of 31 Amish people (29 Americans and 2 Canadians) had people staring in wonder as the group filled the air with their heartfelt hymns. The group came to Israel to apologize to Jews for not previously recognizing the Jews as the chosen people.

A Chevron rig drills for natural gas behind the property owned by the Mast family in Lawrence County, Pa. Energy companies are leasing land throughout Pennsylvania and Ohio where Amish families like the Masts live.

CLEVELAND, OH — The ringleader in hair- and beard-cutting attacks on fellow Amish in Ohio was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison and 15 family members received sentences of one year to seven years.

TOLEDO, Ohio -- Federal prosecutors want a life sentence for the leader of an Amish breakaway group convicted in a series of beard- and hair-cutting attacks, saying it's highly unlikely the attacks would have happened without his involvement.

TOWN OF CLINTON, WI - A 17 year old Amish youth drowned while cutting ice on a spring-fed pond in the Town of Clinton in Vernon County of western Wisconsin.

Ohio- Federal prosecutors want a life sentence for the leader of an Amish breakaway group convicted in a series of beard- and hair-cutting attacks, saying it's highly unlikely the attacks would have happened without his involvement.

NY- Authorities have charged two Amish men with killing a dog and her nine puppies after no one bought the young animals.

DOVER DE – A 46-year-old Smyrna man received a 32-year prison sentence for attempting to rob an Amish couple at gunpoint last July, the Delaware Attorney General’s Office announced Friday. Mark Carter was sentenced to prison Thursday after pleading guilty to two counts of attempted robbery, and one count each of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and burglary on Dec. 6, 2012.

A star of the Discovery Channel television show "Amish Mafia" is scheduled to appear again in Perry County court in three weeks. Alan Lee Beiler, 35, of the 800 block of Country Lane in Paradise, Lancaster County, has been ordered to appear at 9 a.m. on Feb. 15 at the county courthouse in New Bloomfield for central court.

W Farmington OH -- An Amish man from West Farmington was secretly indicted by a Trumbull County grand jury on numerous sex charges involving young girls over a four-year period. Daniel Miller, 46, is being held at the Trumbull County Jail on a $250,000 bond. He pleaded not guilty during his arraignment Monday to 11 charges, including two counts of rape, eight counts of gross sexual imposition and one count of sexual battery, involving five girls between the ages of 11 and 13.

Washington—Vice President Joe Biden said he was "literally" within earshot of the tragic 2006 Amish school shooting in Nickel Mines, estimating he was about a quarter of a mile away from the school at a golf outing on that warm October morning.