We really don’t want to be flip or culturally insensitive, but any story that opens with the phrase “renegade Amish group” immediately grabs our full attention. And that’s just for starters — the leader of this outlaw gang of Amish hair-cutting bandits goes by the highly pertinent name of Sam Mullet.

Or maybe it’s time for our holiday break. We’ll let the source material do the straight reportage thing this time. –KA

The New York Times:

Federal agents arrested the leader of a renegade Amish group and six others in eastern Ohio on Wednesday and charged them with hate crimes for a series of beard- and hair-cutting assaults against Amish men and women.

In a case that drew wide attention because of the unusual nature of the attacks, five of the men were arrested last month on kidnapping and other state charges, and were out on bail. At the time of those arrests, officials said that the founder of the breakaway group, Sam Mullet, 66, had not taken part directly in the nighttime assaults against his perceived enemies, and he was not initially charged.

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