Jolin waits in his truck to a settle a score. (Discovery Channel)
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Don Vito Corleone put a bloody horse’s head in a man’s bed. Michael Corleone had his enemies assassinated while his son was being baptized. Lebanon Levi sent a Mennonite with a shotgun to take out a windshield.
The first two names are infamous in Mafia lore. The third, far less so. But if the Discovery Channel has its way, Levi, star of their new series “Amish Mafia,” which premieres Wednesday at 9 p.m. after a sneak-peek episode Tuesday at 10:30 p.m., will soon join the ranks of pop culture’s toughest Mafia enforcers, provided that people can put horses and buggies out of their minds.
Levi, 33, is an Amish man who runs Amish Aid, the self-insurance system that the Amish community of Lancaster, PA, utilizes as a substitute for traditional insurance. As the man who controls the community’s money, Levi is also in charge of settling disputes — both internally and with outsiders — and ensuring that the local Amish adhere to Amish law.
“It’s a highly respected position, and also a position of power,” says Dolores Gavin, the show’s executive producer. “The person who controls the fund controls the money, and that person holds the power. And that’s Levi.”
Levi, whose control of Amish Aid ran in his family, enforces these laws along with three henchmen, including 25-year-old Jolin, a hunky blond Mennonite with a massive back tattoo who keeps a powerful weapons arsenal.
In episode one, we see how Jolin enforces Levi’s law after an Amish woman’s buggy is hit by a car. Jolin confronts the man who hit her, and when the man dismisses Jolin outright, the Mennonite fires a shotgun blast through his windshield. (The car was unoccupied at the time.)
While the program shows Levi, who resembles a slightly taller Patton Oswalt, both in action and speaking openly to the camera, much about him and his crew is shrouded in secrecy.
We see in episode one that Levi has a criminal record in Lancaster. But his arrest record is blacked out (“Levi,” it turns out, is his first name — his real last name is obscured), and Lancaster police have refused to discuss or disclose information on him.
(We do learn, through Jolin, that a man once held a gun to Levi’s chest, and that Levi responded by breaking the man’s arm.)
Levi is also free to exercise his will in the community through a convenient loophole. According to producers, the Amish are held to Amish law once they are baptized, but they can choose when they want to have the ceremony, if at all. At age 33, Levi has still not been baptized, leaving the Amish church powerless to enforce any of its laws on him.
This seems especially odd given that Levi and his crew, in addition to solving disputes, act as the community’s morality police. In one incident, we see Jolin and John, another crew member, confront a church bishop who has been consorting with a prostitute. After surprising them with cameras, they give the photos to Levi, who banishes the powerful bishop from the community for an indefinite period of time — to be ended at Levi’s discretion — then takes control of his businesses.
In another, they warn off a man who has been trying to solicit a woman for paid sexual favors.
“One thing that’s fascinating about this show is the clash of cultures playing out. That exactly speaks to these differences,” says Gavin. “In the Amish community, the moral law is the same as the criminal law. In that community, [soliciting for sex] is considered a serious grievance, and therefore it came to Lebanon.”
Also confusing for viewers is that much of what viewers see on “Amish Mafia” are dramatizations of real-life encounters. Not only was the incident where Jolin confronts the man who hit the buggy and then shoots out his windshield re-created for the cameras, but both participants in the re-creation were the actual people involved in the initial confrontation. (The man who hit the buggy agreed to appear on condition of payment, and that his face be obscured.)
Judging from the first episode, Discovery is hoping to position “Amish Mafia” as close to a traditional Mafia drama as it can, despite some glaring differences. Instead of Satriale’s, the pork store where Tony Soprano did his business, Levi uses a barn at his headquarters. He metes out Amish justice while surrounded by bales of hay.
Still, we get to see Levi utter the immortal words of any Mafia boss — “There is no such thing as the Amish Mafia” — and by episode’s end, we learn that both Jolin and John, who also has an obscured criminal record, and who reveals that he considered blackmailing the bishop behind Levi’s back for his own gain, are likely to emerge as rivals to Levi’s rule.
Gavin says that Levi is respected in the Amish community, but not all believe his activities serve it well.
“I think it’s a negative,” says Steven Breit, a Lancaster defense attorney who often represents Amish clients. “I don’t think the Amish people want to be known for having a subculture that engages in illegal behavior. It flies in the face of their values.”
Viewers can decide for themselves whether Levi and crew, who speak Pennsylvania Dutch when discussing confidential matters, are good for their community. But admire him or not, “Amish Mafia” does provide an intriguing look inside a community that has long remained mysterious to the outside world.
“I think people are gonna be fascinated with what they see,” says Gavin. “I think they’ll be fascinated with how different our culture is from theirs, but also by how human nature is the same no matter where you go.”
AMISH MAFIA
Tues., 10:30 p.m., Wed., 9 p.m. Discovery