We’re only halfway through the premiere season of TLC’s unreality series Breaking Amish and we’ve already found our third mug shot photo of a cast member prior to his or her appearance on the show. First we had Katie Stoltzfus with her DUI arrest in April of this year, then we uncovered Abe Schmucker’s booking photo from his 2008 public intoxication arrest (along with his brother), and now we have the first of what could be many mug shots of Breaking Amish‘s elder statesman, and apparent chronic domestic violence practitioner, Jeremiah Raber.
The above Jeremiah Raber mug shot photo is from a 2005 arrest for domestic violence against his then wife Naomi Stutzman, according to a brand new video report from Pennsylvania’s CBS 21. In addition to that arrest, the station reports Raber is listed in 17 separate police reports, eight of which were for domestic violence.
Stutzman spoke with the station via phone and had this to say about her ex-husband Jeremiah Raber:
“I’ve been in the hospital multiple times from this man. He was physically abusive. I have the police reports. It’s the main reason we are not together. I had to go to the battered women’s shelter and now TLC is glorifying this man on a family show?”
As we reported earlier, CBS 21 had lined up an interview with Stutzman, but they say she pulled out after she received an offer of $10,000 from TLC to stay quiet – an offer TLC claims was never made. (Stutzman later spoke with Star magazine, so I wonder if the offer was from them and not TLC. Of course, she said nothing about Jeremiah’s criminal past and history with domestic violence, which would seem to be the only information she had worth that sort of money.)
According to CBS 21, “the reports say Jeremiah would become enraged, grabbing Stutzman and throwing her down. When she’d tried to get up, he would push her back down. One report states he hit her in the stomach, while she was pregnant and said if she leaves him she will, ‘not have his baby.'” There were additional reports that mention Naomi filing for a restraining order and pursuing charges.
Amazingly, all is still silent from TLC on all of the information that has come out about the inaccuracies in how the Breaking Amish cast members were presented on the show. Also, after their initial publicity rounds just prior to the premiere (decked out in full Amish and Mennonite regalia no less), the cast have all but vanished off the face of the Earth.
Stay tuned, I’m sure we’ll have more “startling” info soon!
