Tag: Rajneesh

In 1981 Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh spent $5.75 million on a remote piece of property in Oregon and invested millions more to build Rajneeshpuram as a spiritual retreat for thousands of his red-frocked followers.

A few years later some of his followers were convicted of infecting salad bars with Salmonella, as well as other crimes: arson, wiretapping, immigration fraud, election fraud and attempted murder.

The state of Oregon has agreed to sell a 480-acre parcel surrounded by the former Rajneesh compound in central Oregon to a Christian youth camp that now owns the defunct commune’s land.

Claims of sham marriages between followers of controversial Indian guru Bhagwan Rajneesh in Australia are being investigated by the federal Government.

Leaders of a sect responsible for the Western world’s first bioterrorism attack have secretly recruited a workforce for a South Pacific island health resort.

Cult case – Catherine Jane Stork receives five years in a plot to murder a federal prosecutor Citing his duty to mete out both justice and mercy, a federal judge Monday sentenced a former member of the Rajneeshee commune to five years’ probation for her role in an aborted 1985 plot to kill the top federal prosecutor in Oregon. “I’m convinced this defendant has seen the error of her ways,” said U.S. District Judge Malcolm Marsh, who has presided over Rajneeshee criminal trials for the past 19 years. Catherine Jane Stork, 60, described by prosecutors as a former top lieutenant

Catherine Jane Stubbs Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Kill U.S. Attorney in Oregon in 1985 WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 /U.S. Newswire/ — Catherine Jane Stubbs has pleaded guilty to conspiring in 1985 to kill the then-United States Attorney for Oregon, Charles H. Turner, the Department of Justice announced today. At that time, Stubbs, aka Ma Shanti Bhadra, aka Catherine Jane Stork was a member of an international religious cult headed by the late Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Bhagwan) and headquartered on a 64,000 acre commune in Oregon. The guilty plea took place in Portland, Oregon, before U. S. District Judge Malcolm F.

AP, Dec. 21, 2002 http://www.cnn.com/ PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) — A cult leader of the defunct Rajneesh Ranch in central Oregon pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to murder a U.S. Attorney and was sentenced to a year in jail and a $10,000 fine. Phyllis McCarthy, 55, voluntarily flew from South Africa to plead guilty. In an emotional court statement Friday, the former president of the Rajneeshee commune described the cult’s grip as “psychological torture.” But McCarthy said she took personal responsibility for going along with the abortive 1985 plot to murder Charles Turner, who was then Oregon’s U.S. attorney,