The jailed Amish bishop accused of spearheading a beard- and hair-cutting campaign against religious foes today told a federal judge that he is willing to install electricity in his home to accommodate an electronic monitoring device if granted bond before trial.

In a motion filed in U.S. District Court in Akron, Ohio, Samuel Mullet, 66, asks Judge Dan Polster to reconsider an order of detention originally entered following his arrest, along with several codefendants, last November.

A lawyer for Mullet, a married father of 16, noted that his client “is certainly not opposed to allowing electricity service his home” if it would help spring him from custody.

While the Amish do not believe that “electricity is per se evil,” according to Mullet’s motion, they stay off the public grid because they believe “electricity allows for the introduction of modern appliances that can cause family and community members not to reply upon each other.”

Edward Bryan, Mullet’s attorney, adds that it is “not uncommon for Amish to own and use electric generators to power electric power to tools they use for work and trades.” In fact, Mullet uses such a generator “for work,” Bryan reported.

According to federal prosecutors, Mullet, pictured in the above mug shots, controlled the Bergholz Amish sect “by taking the wives of other men into his home, and by overseeing various means of disciplining community members, including corporal punishment.”