Amish Confidential by Lebanon" Levi Stoltzfus & Ellis Henican

Author:Lebanon" Levi Stoltzfus & Ellis Henican
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2015-03-31T07:00:00+00:00

When the Abners’ case finally got to court, their defense lawyers pleaded addiction and Rumspringa. Those weren’t the official defenses, but they might as well have been. What else could the defense lawyers argue? The police had all the evidence they could possibly have wanted, and both the Amish defendants had confessed. Not only confessed, they’d cooperated with the police investigation of the others. “It was pretty clear” Abner Two had been addicted to cocaine, his lawyer, John Pyfer, said at the men’s arraignment. During Rumspringa, the lawyer argued, Amish youth are expected to “sow their wild oats.” During that time, he said, the young people are expected to drink and drive “bright, gaudy cars” while “their parents are looking the other way.” Snorting cocaine is not an accepted part of that, the lawyer admitted. “We’ve seen plenty of underage drinking cases but a drug case is unheard of,” he said.

Lawyers for the Pagans scoffed at the idea that the Abners were any different from their big, bad, motorcycle-riding alleged codefendants. “They’re making the Amish out to be pristine, untarnished young men, corrupted by the evil Pagans,” said Juke’s lawyer, Hope Leferber. “The truth be known, these kids are the same as any other kids who surrender to the temptations of youth. They weren’t corrupted. At best, they were willing ­participants.”

There was no trial. How could there be? The evidence was so overwhelming. Everyone pleaded guilty—the Pagans, the Amish, the hang-arounds. The best they could do, they all decided, was to let their lawyer plead with U.S. District Court judge Clarence Newcomer for mercy at sentencing time.

And the defense lawyers began to do just that.

“It just shows you that the same temptations that are out there for your kids and my kids have found their way into Amish life,” said John Pyfer. “We’re just glad they were able to nip this in the bud.”

Obviously, this particular bud had flowered already.

“I can tell you my client wasn’t driving a Cadillac or living the lifestyle of a drug dealer,” the lawyer added. “Unfortunately, once you get a taste of cocaine, you have to satisfy it.”

Judge Newcomer gave the stiffest sentence, eighty-four months, to Lawrence “Twisted” Mellot, who admitted distributing meth and coke at bars in Chester County. The two men who’d brought the Abners in got off a little lighter. Juke, real name Douglas Hersch, got sixty-three months. “Big Dwayne” Blank received fifty-five months, though his weight, which at sentencing tipped the scales at just over four hundred pounds, would make prison time especially challenging for him. Emory Edward Reed, the chapter president, was now cooperating with the authorities and hoping for a lighter sentence.

When sentencing day finally arrived for the two Abners, it was anything but normal at the federal courthouse in Philadelphia. The Abners and their lawyers and their immediate families were joined by three hundred Pennsylvania Amish, who made the long trip to the courthouse in a fleet of rented vans. The room was packed with men in black and women in long dresses.

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