The leader of a dissident Amish sect was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Friday for a series of bizarre beard- and hair-cutting attacks on other Ohio Amish that drew national attention.

Samuel Mullet Sr., 67, the leader, was sentenced in Federal District Court in Cleveland, for coordinating assaults that prosecutors argued were motivated by religious intolerance. Fifteen of his followers, including six women, were given lesser sentences ranging from one year and one day to seven years by Judge Dan Aaron Polster.

The breakaway Amish were convicted last fall under multiple counts of conspiracy and hate crimes, which carry harsher punishment than simple assault. Prosecutors had asked for a life sentence for Mr. Mullet. Defense lawyers claimed the government was blowing out of proportion personal vendettas that Mr. Mullet harbored against former followers and other critics, and that the hair- and beard-cutting was humiliating but not physically injurious, and thus did not deserve a lengthy sentence.

The series of five attacks in 2011 spread fear through Amish communities in eastern Ohio. Followers of Mr. Mullet broke into homes, restrained men and women and forcibly sheared their victims, sometimes with tools used to clip horse manes. For Amish, descendants of 18th-century German-speaking immigrants, long beards and flowing women’s hair represent religious devotion and cultural identity.
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