1984 Rajneeshee Bioterror Attack - Prosecution

Prosecution

The mayor of Rajneeshpuram, David Berry Knapp (known as Swami Krishna Deva or KD), turned state's evidence and gave an account of his knowledge of the salmonella attack to the FBI. He claimed that Sheela said "she had talked with about the plot to decrease voter turnout in The Dalles by making people sick. Sheela said that commented that it was best not to hurt people, but if a few died not to worry." In Miller's Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War, this statement is attributed to Sheela: According to KD's testimony, she played doubters a muffled tape of Rajneesh's voice saying that "if it was necessary to do things to preserve vision, then do it," and interpreted this to mean that murder in his name was fine, telling doubters "not to worry" if a few people had to die. The investigation uncovered a September 25, 1984, invoice from the American Type Culture Collection of microbes, showing an order received by the Rajneeshpuram laboratory for Salmonella Typhi, the bacterium that causes the life-threatening illness typhoid fever.

According to a 1994 study published in the journal Sociology of Religion, "ost sannyasins indicated that they believed that knew about Ma Anand Sheela's illegal activities." Frances FitzGerald writes in Cities on a Hill that most of Rajneesh's followers "believed incapable of doing, or willing, violence against another person", and that almost all of them thought the responsibility for the criminality was Sheela's – according to FitzGerald they believed he had not known anything about it. Carus writes in Toxic Terror that, "There is no way to know to what extent participated in actual decision-making. His followers believed he was involved in every important decision that Sheela made, but those allegations were never proven." Rajneesh insisted that Sheela, who he said was his only source of information during his period of isolation, used her position to impose "a fascist state" on the commune. He acknowledged that the key to her actions was his silence.

Rajneesh left Oregon by plane on October 27, 1985, and was arrested when he landed in Charlotte, North Carolina, and charged with 35 counts of deliberate violations of immigration laws. As part of a plea bargain arrangement, he pled guilty to two counts of making false statements to immigration officials. He received a ten-year suspended sentence and a fine of US$400,000, and was deported and barred from reentering the United States for a period of five years. He was never prosecuted for crimes related to the salmonella poisoning.

Sheela and Puja were arrested in West Germany on October 28, 1985. After protracted negotiations, they were extradited to the United States and arrived in Portland on February 6, 1986. They were charged with attempting to murder Rajneesh's personal physician, first-degree assault for poisoning Judge William Hulse, second-degree assault for poisoning The Dalles Commissioner Raymond Matthews, and product tampering for the poisonings in The Dalles, as well as wiretapping and immigration offenses. The U.S. Attorney's office handled the prosecution of the poisoning cases related to the 10 restaurants, and the Oregon Attorney General's office prosecuted the poisoning cases of Commissioner Matthews and Judge Hulse.

On July 22, 1986, both women entered Alford pleas for the salmonella poisoning and the other charges, and received sentences ranging from three to twenty years, to be served concurrently. Sheela received twenty years for the attempted murder of Rajneesh's physician, twenty years for first-degree assault in the poisoning of Judge Hulse, ten years for second-degree assault in the poisoning of Commissioner Matthews, four and a half years for her role in the salmonella poisoning, four and a half years for the wiretapping conspiracy, and five years' probation for immigration fraud; Puja received fifteen, fifteen, seven and a half, and four and a half years, respectively, for her role in the first four of these crimes, as well as three years' probation for the wiretapping conspiracy. Both Sheela and Puja were released early for good behavior, after serving twenty-nine months of their sentences in a minimum-security federal prison. Sheela was deported, and went on to run two nursing homes in Switzerland.