Amish in the News

BERGHOLZ, Ohio -- Inside a one-room schoolhouse, Lizzie Mullet pulls her attention away from her students and focuses on the biggest issue facing them: their families. "We're doing the best we can to keep our spirits up, but we're worried about what will happen next," Mullet said.

Ethridge TN -- Diann Pollack isn’t exactly sure when the Amish first came to Ethridge. Some locals say it 1942. Others say 1944. “When I give a tour, I just say it was in the mid-1940s,” said Pollack, manager of the Amish Welcome Center along Highway 43 in Ethridge.

Mr Romney, who is trailing in the polls in Pennsylvania, should not pin too much hope on the Amish vote, though. Perhaps a thousand are registered to vote, I was told.

An attorney for another woman, Lovina Miller, said she has eight children she works hard to support and wasn’t a flight risk because she travels by horse and buggy and has strong beliefs against air travel. Schrock and Lovina Miller were among the seven defendants the judge allowed to remain free.

CIRCLEVILLE, Ohio - Dozens of dogs were pulled from what investigators called deplorable conditions on Monday. Ohio SPCA members from across the state gathered at an Amish farm in Pickaway County, where deputies said as many as 50 dogs were being neglected. Investigators arrived late Monday morning to serve a search warrant to the property owner.

On Tuesday, the ex-wife of Jeremiah Raber, one of the stars of TLC’s ‘Breaking Amish,’ spoke out about the new show calling it “fake.

A yearlong sting operation and a 5 a.m. armed SWAT team raid on an Amish farm in Pennsylvania may seem surprising to some, but the federal government deemed it necessary in order to stop the selling of illegal contraband to willing Washington, D.C. residents. The contraband: unpasteurized milk.

They needed money for a move to the city and drugs. So they donned gas masks, carried baseball bats and cruised through the rural roads of Berne in a faded-green Chevy Malibu looking to target horse-drawn buggies. On Monday, they hit up four of them.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - An Ohio Amish man who fired a shot into the air that killed a 15-year-old girl driving a horse-drawn buggy more than a mile away will go to jail for 30 days, a prosecutor said Wednesday. As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Marion Yoder, 28, pleaded guilty Tuesday to a misdemeanor count of negligent homicide, said Steve Knowling, the prosecutor for Holmes County in northern Ohio.

LAGRANGE COUNTY, Ind. (WANE) An Elkhart, Indiana woman is accused of burglarizing Amish homes in LaGrange County while the residents were attending church on Sundays.

In upstate New York, small farmers are being squeezed out by thousand-cow dairies and genetically modified crop producers. The buggy-driving members of a traditional sect may be hit hardest of all.

CLEVELAND -- Prosecutors will be able to tell jurors about alleged sexual "counseling" of Amish wives by a man charged with masterminding beard- and hair-cutting attacks on fellow Amish in Ohio, a federal judge ruled on Monday.

The curious involvement of an Amish-Mennonite sect in a high-profile case of international parental kidnapping will be on display — and perhaps become clearer — in a courtroom in Burlington, Vt., this week.

A new census of the Amish population in the United States estimates that a new Amish community is founded, on average, about every 3 1/2 weeks, and shows that more than 60 percent of all existing Amish settlements have been founded since 1990.

Quick work by Amish church goers of the Northwest District at the farmstead of Neal Borntrager, 5570 Eagle Ave, Kalona, saved 12 horses from a building that caught fire about 10 a.m. Sunday.

A pregnant Amish woman picking berries in the woods near her Pennsylvania home was killed by lightning on her due date. The fetus also died.

BELLEFONTE — The young woman who robbed an Amish family’s store at gunpoint last year in Aaronsburg has pleaded guilty as part of a plea agreement. Prosecutors will ask that Brittany Wingard, 20, of Aaronsburg, get three to seven years when a judge sentences her next month.

An Amish man failed to show how obtaining a permit for his new sawmill violates his religion, a state appeals court ruled Thursday. The 4th District Court of Appeals found Joni Borntreger's arguments too vague to conclude the permit requirements infringed on his beliefs and kicked his case back to the circuit court level. The ruling reversed a decision by Jackson County Circuit Judge Thomas E. Lister, who initially ordered Borntreger to pay a forfeiture before changing his mind and dismissing the case.

An Amish couple in a horse and buggy was held up at gunpoint Sunday by a bandit who pulled his car in front of the buggy and then drove off when the victims didn’t have any money, police said today.The attempted robbery occurred about 12:20 p.m. near the intersection of Holly Island Road and Bryants Corner Road in Hartly, Master Cpl. Gary Fournier said.

LANCASTER, Pa. — Daniel is a publicity-shy member of the Old Order Amish Church. But it thrills him to jump into an ambulance vibrating with wailing sirens and flashing lights. The 24-year-old Leacock Township father of two recently became certified as an emergency medical technician. For five years previously, he was a firefighter.

Amish farmers, whose beliefs stop them from inoculating their children but not their horses, thronged a first-ever free veterinary vaccination clinic this week to fend off a disease that has killed a dozen horses and a four-year-old girl.

FORT SCOTT, Kansas (Reuters) - The simple way of Amish life is a bit too simple for one Kansas county, which wants outhouses on their farms to be upgraded and an end to plowing raw human sewage into the fields. Officials in Bourbon County want Amish families to stop using outhouses unless they comply with codes requiring waste disposal tanks. That would be costly and unnecessary, say Amish homeowners.

GEAUGA COUNTY, Ohio – The Geauga County Sheriff’s Office is looking for two men who robbed two young Amish couples at gunpoint, at separate times, about 11 p.m. Sunday on Patch Road in Parkman. “The county sheriffs are doing a very good job of trying to track this down, and we really appreciate that,” said an Amish man driving by the robbery site in a buggy.

GREENWICH, Ohio - Life in Mennonite and Amish communities in northwest Ohio center around family. The children intrinsically know how to please and provide. "If it's feeding calves, you know, they can do that before they go to school. A five-year-old can feed a calf," said Elvin Zimmerman. Everyone of Zimmerman's eight kids started doing chores at age five which included hand feeding calves. As they grow, their responsibilities grow as well. But in April, one of Zimmerman's sons was killed in a farming accident while operating a machine his dad made.

One look at the countryside and the beauty should take your breath away. "If you want to retire some place, this is the place to do it," said Justin Siak. "There's something to this." Amish country is nestled in northeast Ohio and is a snapshot of living life simple and serenely. Thousands of tourists are drawn to Holmes County each year, ONN's Denise Alex reported.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The man dubbed the Amish Bernie Madoff tried to disassociate himself from the notorious New York City swindler Wednesday, but a federal judge didn’t buy it. U.S. District Judge Benita Pearson rejected Monroe Beachy’s request to serve a term of home confinement, and instead ordered him to spend 6 ½ years behind bars, followed by a year of probation, for bilking investors out of millions of dollars.

FAIRBANK - A member of an Amish Community, William J. Yutzy, 30, of 33906 Hilton Road, Edgewood, formerly of 1370 Dillon Ave., Fairbank, pleaded guilty and was sentenced on one count of Sexual Abuse in the Third Degree, a Class C Felony, in Buchanan County District Court on Tuesday, June 5.

MIDDLEFIELD -- Some Amish leave the faith to pursue further education. William Troyer grew up in Middlefield and left the Amish community at age 18. "There's nothing wrong with being Amish, it just wasn't for me," says Troyer. He is now a student at the University of Akron who plans to become a teacher.

HUNTINGDON, Pa. — According to criminal complaint obtained by 6News, a Huntingdon County man charged last month on accusations of sexually abusing three boys was slapped with new charges this week. State police filed 145 child sex abuse charges against 65-year-old Larry Myers in April, after three boys told investigators that they were molested and sodomized by the man inside his home and on trips when he hauled mulch with his truck.

A group of Amish men are currently in court because they refuse to install smoke detectors in their New York homes: