Man Charged With Attempted Kidnapping Of Amish Girl — After Months Of Harassment & Indecent Exposure

A man has been arrested and charged after what investigators describe as a months-long pattern of harassment & indecent exposure aimed at young females in the Amish community near DeGraff, Ohio.

The Logan County Sheriff’s Office laid out the allegations in a press release, via Peak of Ohio:

Detectives from the Logan County Sheriff’s Office have been investigating multiple reports received within the last several months. These reports involve a male suspect harassing young females in the Amish Community in the rural Degraff area.

The male suspect has reportedly been slowly driving in the area near Amish bicyclists, Amish buggies, and Amish residences, acting in a suspicious manner.

It was reported that the unknown male was consistently traveling and parking in the area, harassing young females, and exposing himself.

The Sheriff’s release draws attention to one incident in particular:

In one incident, it was reported that the suspect blocked the rural Township Road with his vehicle, attempting to prevent a young female from traveling past him while exposing himself.

The female had to travel down into the ditch to get away from the suspect.

A break came when a witness managed to get a license plate number, following a report of suspicious activity. That led detectives to the red SUV of 39-year-old Jonathon W. Clark, who already had an outstanding warrant for unrelated offenses.

He was arrested on June 15. Witnesses positively identified Clark when shown photos of the man and his vehicle.

Clark was charged with attempted kidnapping, menacing by stalking, and public indecency.

Clark told detectives that he was homeless and living in his car. He admitted being in the area, but claimed he had only been driving slowly past members of the community for safety reasons. He denied the allegations of lewd activity.

Predators And Amish Victims

This man is considered innocent until and if proven guilty of course, but it just sounds like a sad, disturbing story for all involved. And this isn’t the first time we’ve seen these types of offenses against the Amish.

Targeting of Amish by flashers and harassers is something we’ve seen before. This past January, Pennsylvania State Police investigated three indecent exposure incidents targeting Amish women in Indiana County, spanning October 2025 through January 2026. The suspect there used multiple vehicles to repeatedly stop alongside horse-and-buggy travelers, expose himself, and try to lure victims closer.

It was far from the first such case in the state. A man was caught for similar behavior against Amish women in Lancaster County in 2016, and back in 2014 a police officer even went undercover in an Amish woman’s disguise to try to catch a flasher targeting Amish children.

I suppose the Amish make attractive targets for these sick individuals for similar reasons to why they are seen as burglary prospects by some – an assumption (often wrong) that they won’t involve the police, for one.

There is also the knowledge that an Amish victim, especially in a plain community like this one, probably isn’t carrying a smartphone which could be used to photo the perpetrator, or contact police. Likewise, they don’t have cars, only slow buggies or their own two feet.

And there’s a final bit as well – I would guess some of these people get a special thrill from doing their thing in the presence of Amish women. They’re a conservative religious group that carries a certain pure aura about them, in some people’s perceptions at least.

On a more serious note, the Amish have seen abduction attempts as well – such as last year in Ohio, and Pennsylvania, in which cases both boys escaped capture.

Last February, an “Amish wannabe” named Lester M. Raymind assaulted and tried to kidnap a 16-year-old Amish girl at a coffee shop in Arthur, Illinois, with Raymind later being found not guilty by reason of insanity.

And sadly, there are more than just these examples, some which have ended up very badly for the young people involved.

The DeGraff Amish Have Been Targeted Before

For those unfamiliar with it, DeGraff sits in Logan County in west-central Ohio. The Amish settlement there is a conservative one, having somewhere around 1,000 people, one of two Amish communities in the county.

It is also, unfortunately, a community with some history of being singled out.

A reader with ties to the area once shared with us a string of incidents in the DeGraff settlement some years back, providing an example of why the Amish – and plainer groups in particular – might be targeted.

This is by the late Don Curtis, father to Amish convert Mark Curtis (who lives in the other Logan County community of Belle Center):

My son, Mark, related to me that there were similar incidents here in Logan County, Ohio a few years back. Shootings at Amish homes. Amish farm animals set on fire and injured. Etc. These incidents happened to the Amish community at Degraff, Ohio. It is a very conservative Amish group.

These incidents did not happen to Mark’s group at Belle Center. The Amish at Degraff didn’t call the police, they just suffered in silence.

But one of the Amish talked about the persecution to an English friend and he took it upon himself to call the [police]. The perpetrators were caught. A couple of teenage boys.

In court they admitted to the crime and their motivation was because: “Them Amish are dirty.” The Amish wouldn’t press charges or appear in court. I don’t know what the boys received as punishment. Should be ashamed of [themselves].

That comment in court also hints at the motivation for some – seeing the Amish as lesser, “dirty”, maybe even deserving of such harassment.

I suspect that the plainer Amish – those more distant culturally from the non-Amish world – are more often seen in such a light, and I speculate may in fact see more of such bad behavior across the board.