Midstate professor serves as government witness in Amish trial

Photo by Craig Layne

(Elizabethtown) -- A midstate college professor recently served as an expert witness in a trial that's gained international attention.

Elizabethtown College's Donald Kraybill is renowned for his work with the Amish and similar groups.

The federal government tapped his knowledge when they put him on the witness stand in the hate crimes trial of the so-called "Bergholz Clan" -- a group that broke away from the Amish in eastern Ohio and then engaged in the beard and hair cutting of other Amish community members in the fall of 2011.

Kraybill spoke with witf's Craig Layne about how the group differs from the Amish in the midstate and why cutting off the beard of an Amish man would be offensive...