When Mennonites Go Bad
In Ohio, a religious rift in the local Amish Mennonite community led to a series of beard attacks by one group on their rivals, leaving the victims with patches of facial hair. Among the Amish branch of the Mennonite Church, beards are a critical component of masculine identity, and cutting off a person's beard is a form of ostracization. In November, members of the appropriately named Mullet clan, including their prophet-like leader Sam Mullet, were arrested as suspects in the attacks. Meanwhile, overseas, a group of Mennonites in Bolivia have been convicted in a bizarre series of rapes. As TIME's Jean Friedman-Rudovsky reported, the group was accused of "transforming a chemical meant to anesthetize cows into a spray to be used on humans. For four years, the group allegedly sprayed the chemical through bedroom windows in Manitoba at night, sedating entire families and raping the females." In August, a Bolivian court found seven of the eight defendants on trial guilty of the rape charges and sentenced each to 25 years in prison.