CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A federal judge handed down lower sentences Monday afternoon to 16 Amish defendants from the small farming community of Bergholz who were convicted in a series of beard-cutting attacks.

U.S. District Judge Dan Polster sentenced Bishop Sam Mullet, the Amish community's leader, to 129 months in federal prison. Seven others who are still imprisoned were given lower sentences, while eight defendants who were released were sentenced to time served.

New sentences for Amish defendants

U.S. District Judge Dan Polster handed down new sentences Monday afternoon for 16 Amish defendants convicted in a series of beard-cutting attacks. Polster re-sentenced the group because an appeals court overturned the defendants' hate-crime convictions

Here is what Polster handed down to the defendants:

- Sam Mullet: 10 years, nine months in federal prison. He originally had a 15-year sentence. He remains incarcerated.

- Johnny Mullet, Lester Mullet, Levi Miller and Eli Miller: 5 years federal prison. They were all originally sentenced to seven years and remain incarcerated.

- Emanuel Shrock, Danny Mullet and Lester Miller: 3 years, seven month in federal prison. They originally received five-year sentences and remain incarcerated.

- Linda Shrock, Raymond Miller, Freeman Burkholder, Lovina Miller, Elizabeth Miller, Emma Miller, Anna Miller, and Kathryn Miller: time served. All eight have been released from prison.

Before sentencing those who remained in prison, Polster told them it is obvious that the crime was religiously motivated, even if the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed all of the defendants' hate-crime convictions.

"You chose a method that was particularly calculated to inflict trauma on (the victims) because they are Amish," Polster said.

All of the defendants remain convicted on a conspiracy charge, and several are convicted of obstruction of justice and making a false statement to the FBI.

However, the judge said that if he handed down the same sentences as he did in February 2013 -- which is what prosecutors had asked for -- it may be "misinterpreted and misconstrued," especially in light of the 6th Circuit's decision.

All of the defendants declined to make a statement before Polster handed down his new sentences.

Following the hearing, U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach said he was happy the judge considered the conduct that led to the hate crime charges when he re-sentenced the defendants.

"Yet again, the judge who heard the whole case saw through the smoke and mirrors that the defense tried to put up and basically called them out for what they had done," Dettelbach said.

Ed Bryan, an assistant federal public defender representing Sam Mullet, said after the hearing that he was disappointed in the judge's decision. He and other attorneys representing those who are still incarcerated had pushed the judge to free their clients and sentence them to time served.

"It was disproportionately harsh for what he was being sentenced for," Bryan said.

The defendants are members of a breakaway sect of an Amish community made up of 18 families in Jefferson County. They were convicted of multiple crimes in September 2012 for carrying out five nighttime raids.

In the attacks, members of the community rousted five victims out of bed and chopped off their beards and hair with horse mane shears and battery-powered clippers. The attackers documented the attacks with a disposable camera.

Prosecutors said the attacks were carried out at Mullet's behest against the bishop's enemies. Witnesses portrayed him as a fire-and-brimstone preacher who imposed strict, and often bizarre, discipline on his flock.

During the sentencing, Polster said he remembers hearing testimony during the trial on the attack the group carried out against Melvin Shrock.

Shrock died two months later of a kidney disease, and the judge said he was still disfigured when his body was laid out at his wake.

"I'll never forget that," the judge said.

News of the attacks made national headlines and raised questions about the federal hate-crimes law, which carries much harsher sentencing enhancements.