In this photo made on Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013, a pair of young Amish boys play in a sandbox in front of the home of Sam Mullet Sr., in Bergholz, Ohio. Mullet is one of sixteen men and women facing sentencing Friday, Feb. 8, 2013 in beard-cutting attacks on fellow Amish in Ohio. The defendants want leniency so they can return to their homes and farms, to teach their sons a trade and their daughters how to sew, cook and keep house. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
In this photo made on Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013, a pair of young Amish boys play in a sandbox in front of the home of Sam Mullet Sr., in Bergholz, Ohio. Mullet is one of sixteen men and women facing sentencing Friday, Feb. 8, 2013 in beard-cutting attacks on fellow Amish in Ohio. The defendants want leniency so they can return to their homes and farms, to teach their sons a trade and their daughters how to sew, cook and keep house. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
In this photo made on Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013, an Amish woman walks down the dirt road past the home of Sam Mullet Sr., and one of the the farms in Bergholz, Ohio that are worked by the families of sixteen men and women facing sentencing Friday, Feb. 8, 2013 in beard-cutting attacks on fellow Amish in Ohio. The defendants want leniency so they can return to their homes and farms, to teach their sons a trade and their daughters how to sew, cook and keep house. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
In this photo made on Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013, a young Amish woman walks down the dirt road between the farms in Bergholz, Ohio that are worked by the families of sixteen men and women facing sentencing Friday, Feb. 8, 2013 in beard-cutting attacks on fellow Amish in Ohio. The defendants want leniency so they can return to their homes and farms, to teach their sons a trade and their daughters how to sew, cook and keep house. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
In this photo made on Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013, an Amish buggy is driven down the road between the farms in Bergholz, Ohio that are worked by the families of sixteen men and women facing sentencing Friday, Feb. 8, 2013 in beard-cutting attacks on fellow Amish in Ohio. The defendants want leniency so they can return to their homes and farms, to teach their sons a trade and their daughters how to sew, cook and keep house. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
CLEVELAND (AP) ? Prosecutors hope the ringleader of beard- and hair-cutting attacks on fellow Amish will receive a life prison term Friday when he's sentenced in a case that shed unwelcome light on discipline and dissent in a community that tries to stay apart from modern culture.
The ringleader, Samuel Mullet Sr., and 15 members of his extended family face sentencing in U.S. District Court and could receive more than 10 years in prison.
The 10 men and six women were convicted last year in five attacks in Amish communities in northeast and eastern Ohio in 2011.
The government says the attacks were retaliation against Amish who had defied or denounced Mullet's authoritarian style. The 67-year-old Mullet called 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.
The defendants were charged with a hate crime because prosecutors believe religious differences brought about the attacks.
Nine of 10 men who were convicted have been locked up awaiting sentencing. The six women, who all have children, have been free on bond.
In a rare interview last week in Bergholz at the sprawling Mullet farm amid rolling hills in eastern Ohio, Mullet's unmarried 19-year-old grandson, Edward Mast, discussed the family's attitude. He said they are steadfast in the belief that the attacks didn't rise to the level of a hate crime.
"The beard, what it stands for me, what I know about it, once you're married, you just grow a beard. That's just the way the Amish is," Mast said.
As for the victims, he added, "They got their beard back again, so what's the big deal about it?"
Arlene Miller, 48, of Carrollton, whose husband, an Amish bishop, was among the victims, thinks Mullet deserves a tough sentence and the others should get less time if they get cult deprogramming counseling.
"It's a cult," she said. "Their minds were programmed in the wrong way by Sam Mullet, so we feel like these people are very deceived and they are actually victims of Sam Mullet."
She said there were no winners in the ordeal. "There's no happy ending to this," she said.
Mullet's family denies his community is a cult.
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