Those arrested include Mullet; his sons Johnny, Lester and Daniel; Levi Miller; Eli Miller; and Emanuel Schrock. The charges carry a penalty of up 10 years in prison.
The men appeared in U.S. District Court in Youngstown on Wednesday afternoon, and Magistrate Judge George Limbert ordered them detained by the U.S. Marshals Service pending hearings next week.
Attorneys for Johnny and Lester Mullet and Levi and Eli Miller said they could not comment Wednesday on the details of the case. Messages seeking comment were left for attorneys representing Daniel Mullet and Emanuel Schrock.
Lawyer Andy Hyde, who represents Sam Mullet in the state case, said Mullet would contest the federal charges but said he didn't know if he would represent Mullet in federal court.
Holmes County Prosecutor Steve Knowling, who filed state charges against five of the same defendants last month, said he would dismiss those counts and let federal prosecutors take the lead in the case.
In the state case, an Amish bishop and his son said they were held down while men used scissors and a clipper to cut their beards.
The seven men were sleeping when the FBI and local police showed up at their homes before dawn Wednesday, the sheriff said. Three men initially refused to come out of their rooms, but all seven were arrested without incident, he said.
An FBI affidavit said Johnny, Lester and Daniel Mullet and Levi and Eli Miller all confessed in early October to taking part in at least a couple of the attacks.
Johnny Mullet told detectives that it was his idea to cut the hair and beards and that he discussed the idea with his father, who gave him the addresses of two victims, the affidavit said.
Lester Mullet told detectives that after two attacks in late September, the men went home and told Sam Mullet what happened. He said his father laughed and called them nuts, the court document said.
Abdalla, the sheriff, said he didn't know the specifics of the religious disagreements that prompted Mullet to form his own community in 1995.
But the heart of his recent dispute with Amish bishops stemmed from his desire to excommunicate several members, the FBI said. Other bishops concluded the excommunications weren't consistent with Amish teachings and scripture and decided not to recognize the penalties, the FBI said.
One of Mullet's daughters-in-law and a former brother-in-law told investigators that Mullet controls everything that happens within the community outside Bergholz and that he allowed others to beat members of the group who disobeyed him, according to the affidavit filed in federal court Wednesday.
Mullet punished some by making them sleep in a chicken coop for days and was sexually intimate with married women in the community so that he could "cleanse them of the devil," the two said in the affidavit.
Both said they left the community because they did not want to live under Mullet's control.
The FBI affidavit detailed four hair-cutting attacks. The attacks occurred against a couple in Trumbull County on Sept. 6; on Oct. 4 against a man and his son in Holmes County; later on Oct. 4 against a man in Carroll County; and on Nov. 9 against a man allegedly lured to the Mullet complex in Jefferson County.
Authorities said previously that some Amish refused to press charges, following their practice of avoiding involvement of the courts.
Dettelbach alluded to the issue, saying: "It is not the victim's job to decide or to bring charges. I think that's a message I would like people to understand. These charges in this case are the result of our independent determination that crimes occurred."
Stephen Anthony, head of the FBI in northern Ohio, said hate crimes are a priority for the agency.
"The message we'd like to send should be clear that the FBI and all of our law enforcement partners represented here today take civil rights violations very, very seriously," he said.
Ohio has an estimated Amish population of just under 61,000 — second only to Pennsylvania — with most living in rural counties south and east of Cleveland.
They have a modest lifestyle and are deeply religious. Their traditions of traveling by horse and buggy and forgoing most modern conveniences distance themselves from the outside world and symbolize a yielding to a collective order.
