Government Sends Amish Farmer to Federal Pen for 6 Years Over Labels They Didn’t Like

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Samuel Girod is a farmer of the “Old Order Amish community” and a father of twelve, grandfather of twenty-five, in Bath County, Kentucky.

Ricochet reports that the 57-year-old Girod was sentenced to six years in the federal pen for mislabeling herbal remedies.

The farmer first attracted the attention of the government for selling homemade herbal remedies when a woman complained.

To give you an idea of what is going on, one remedy was a salve of olive oil, beeswax, chickweed, and rosemary. It’s used for cuts, burns, and poison ivy.

A Missouri resident field a complaint about the language so the state health department demanded he change the label from ‘Healing Chickweed”. He renamed it “Original Chickweed”.

Another product called “To-Mor-Gone” containing bloodroot was “very good at removing tumors”. It’s a century’s old remedy to remove dead skin layers. The FDA said it was dangerous and went to his home to inspect, armed with machine guns.

He continued to sell his products after the government ordered him to stop.

He is said to have tampered with or threatened a witness. Mr. Girod denied it. The Amish don’t threaten. On Day 2 of the trial, her name was revealed as Mary Miller. She did not want to testify, obviously a friend to Sam, did not feel threatened or corrupted by him. What he did was advise her that she did not have to open her records up to the government.

Witnesses included a handful of customers brought in by the government to say they wouldn’t have bought the products if they had known of the government order to stop selling. Witnesses were customers who loved the products and who were forced to testify, the Kentucky Free Press reported.

There were no drugs involved, these are herbs, and there were no victims.

Girod fought the big government and lost

Girod, being Amish, wouldn’t let them in because the Amish avoid the modern world as much as possible.

The federal monster came down on him with the weight of the nasty big government for “vague medical claims” on labels.

Girod then missed a hearing last August and the government came to arrest the “fugitive”.

Acting as his own counsel, he said: “I am not a creation of state/government, as such I am not within its jurisdiction,” he said. “The proceedings of the ‘United States District Court’ cannot be applied within the jurisdiction of the ‘State of Kentucky.’”

Nevertheless, the trial proceeded. “I do not waive my immunity to this court. I do not consent,” he said in a statement.

The Bath County Sheriff John Snedegar tried petitioning the Feds to leave him alone and stop “attacking and victimizing such peaceful and law-abiding Americans”. The sheriff said he wouldn’t “stand by as the rights of peaceful people are violated.”

Local residents agreed with the sheriff as they tried to figure out what Mr. Girod did wrong.

“I can’t even figure out what he has done wrong,” said resident Suza Moody. “They live at the foot of the cross and the thought of one of them intentionally doing something wrong is outrageous.”

“They are just devastated. I mean when they brought him out in handcuffs. It was awful,” said family friend, Sally Oh.

There are 27,000 signatures on a petition seeking his immediate release.

Close to 100 supporters of Girod, including many in the Amish community, waited outside the federal courthouse for the results of the sentencing. Former Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack was among them.

“This is absolutely insanity,” Mack said. “What is the number one thing that government is supposed to be doing in our country? Preventing injustice. And they’re the ones promoting it today. This is the FDA and Judge Reeves creating a criminal out of an innocent Amish farmer.”

The judge called Sam “obstinate” and accused him of “continuous and blatant disregard for the rule of law.” The laws he was referring to were FDA agency rules.

The Kentucky Free Press reported that: Sam had repeatedly tried to obey the rules the FDA were forcing upon him, but it was never good enough. The FDA kept telling him that he was in violation of new rules. Seeing the futility in this, Sam invited them to make suggestions that were acceptable to them and was told that it’s not the FDA’s job to design his labeling for him and it was his responsibility to comply with the law, aka their secret rules that keep changing. It was an impossible situation for Sam.

Girod was sentenced to 6 years in federal prison, “three years supervised release following that, $1,300 in fines, and more than $14,000 restitution for his victimless crime.”

One student from Boone County stood outside the courtroom holding a sign that read, “I don’t need the FDA to protect me from an Amish farmer.”

Please tweet this to President Trump and ask for a full pardon. This is the ‘scary’ religious sect they think we need protection from?

You can sign the petition on this link.

Report from earlier this year

Recent report

An Amish man discusses the case

Other sources: Google and US News
This story has been updated to include more sources and videos because people can’t believe it.

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Greg
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Greg
6 years ago

There’s an Even more egregious case and that is the case of Sholom Rubashkin and Agriprocessors who received 27 years for fraud which was the direct result of what the Government had inflicted.

It started out as an immigration case and I suspect it was to give the impression of being tough on illegals, because many were pushing for Amnesty at the time.

On a number of occasions the Government attempted to find violations. Since the company was meticulously following the law no violations could be found. Only UNTIL the Government themselves falsified documents did a case arise. The raid on the business was the largest in US history at the time. There were a great many false accusations on the business, such as hiring 15 year olds. Most of the accusations came from Peta.

A special note here. As I recall Peta had video of the plant and the slaughtering of cows. Few know the specifics of shechitah (kosher slaughter) and are taken aback on how much blood is dispersed and how fast. Without realizing, it IS the most humane method of slaughter. There is also the question of a Hechsher, which is the Kosher “stamp of approval”. There is one group who are attempting to make the Hechsher into a form of “social justice”. THIS is where many of the false accusations come from.

There were hundreds and hundreds of agents from across the spectrum including helicopter Swat teams. Hundreds were rounded up in a case of the worst violations imagined. In a case of judicial malpractice 300 defendants were processed and convicted within four days. The judge that sat on these cases became the same judge to oversee the case against Rubashkin for fraud.

Instead of the Government pursuing the immigration case they first went with the fraud case. Since the business had a continuous line of credit any business interruption would be disastrous. As it turns out the bank was owed several million dollars and the business couldn’t pay down the credit line. The specific reason that couldn’t be done was the Government would NOT allow ANYONE related OR associated with Rubashkin to maintain the business. As a result it all came crashing down. NO investor would come forward because of these restrictions. In the end Rubashkin was convicted of fraud.

During sentencing I was aghast at what can be included in the sentencing guidelines. Every accusation that wasn’t even brought up at trial was included in determining sentencing, such as the minors being hired, sexual harassment, worker mistreatment and on and on. These were all brought up at sentencing and the result, TWENTY SEVEN YEARS handed down. During the trial the Defense attempted to have the Immigration trial and fraud trial handled together, to no avail. ANY mention of the Immigration aspect also was denied admission. We were to find out later The WHY. The same judge who participated in the raid was the same who presided over this trial.

The immigration trial eventually came to pass. It was this part of the circumstances that eventually led to the company’s downfall. He was found not guilty on all those charges and the case was later expunged, which is an admission of wrongdoing by the Government.

Many, including myself, have wondered why events transpired against the largest Kosher slaughterhouse in the country as they did. The events lead to something very suspicious.

Robert A Miles Sr.
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Robert A Miles Sr.
6 years ago

Big Brother is watching you

Jake
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Jake
6 years ago

He was probably selling “snake oil” but not a level 6 year prison level crime. Lots of snake oil being sold. This is an abuse of discretion. Most of us would probably rather see Rachel from Cardholder services calling our homes every other day burned at the stake than this guy.

bydesign001
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bydesign001
6 years ago

Barack Obama was not in office one year before the feds began their war on the Amish. Talk about despicable. Leave them alone. They bother no one.