CLEVELAND – Prosecutors hope for a life prison term when a judge in Ohio sentences the ringleader in beard- and hair-cutting cutting attacks on fellow Amish.
Sixty-seven-year-old Samuel Mullet Sr. and 15 members of his extended family face sentencing Friday in Cleveland federal court.
The 10 men and six women were convicted last year in five attacks in Amish communities in 2011.
The government says the attacks were retaliation against Amish who had defied or denounced Mullet's authoritarian style. Mullet calls it an internal faith matter that didn't rise to a hate crime.
Mullet's attorney asked for a sentence of two years or less.
Amish believe the Bible instructs women to let their hair grow long and men to grow beards once they marry. Cutting it would be offensive to Amish.
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