1985 Rajneeshee Assassination Plot - Prosecutions - Arrests and Convictions

Arrests and Convictions

Chief criminal assistant U.S. attorney Baron C. Sheldahl was assigned to prosecute the charges of federal wiretapping, and a special team from the United States Department of Justice Criminal Division was tasked with prosecuting the murder conspiracy charges. Four of the perpetrators were arrested in September 1990. Catherine Jane Stork and Richard Kevin Langford were arrested in West Germany, Ann Phyllis McCarthy was arrested in South Africa, and Susan Hagan was arrested in England. In September 1990, Alma Peralta pled guilty to conspiracy to commit murder. Peralta, who had served as Ma Anand Sheela's bodyguard and confidante, agreed to testify against the other defendants in the murder conspiracy. Under the terms of Peralta's plea agreement she received a sentence of two years in federal prison. Carol Matthews was arrested in Baden-Baden, Germany in October 1990 on charges of wiretapping and conspiracy to murder Turner, where she was held along with three other Rajneeshees. At the time of her arrest, Matthews was found in possession of a false British passport, and had been traveling under the fake name of "Daphene Fosberry". Indictments were brought against Ma Anand Sheela and six other co-conspirators by a federal grand jury in November 1990.

In April 1991, Carol Matthews and Richard Kevin Langford (Swami Anugiten) were extradited from Germany to the United States in order to appear in federal court in Portland, Oregon. Law enforcement officials from the United States Marshals Service traveled to Frankfurt, Germany and took custody of the Matthews and Langford at Rhine Main Airport. On April 15, 1991, Matthews and Langford appeared in federal court in Oregon, and both pleaded innocent to charges of conspiracy to commit murder and carrying out wiretapping. On April 25, 1991, Richard Kevin Langford pleaded guilty in federal court to participating in the murder conspiracy plot against Turner, and in exchange he received a sentence of five years in federal prison and the dismissal of other charges against him relating to firearms and wiretapping. Langford agreed to testify against the other members of the murder conspiracy. Langford wrote on his plea agreement form: "In 1985, meetings were held at the Rancho Rajneesh ... at which time the possible killing of the United States Attorney for Oregon was discussed. I participated in a number of these meetings and agreed with others to work toward that object." Prosecutor Timothy J. Reardon III stated that Langford had been a member of the Rajneesh commune in Oregon since it began in 1981, and that the government was able to prove he joined the murder conspiracy at a point in time after May 25, 1985. Reardon said that Langford was a member of a group called the "Circle of 38", which was the personal security force that guarded Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and that he had served as a weapons instructor and policeman at the commune. Langford told U.S. District Judge Malcom F. Marsh that he had suggested that guns for the murder conspiracy could be bought in Texas, instructed the conspiractors about silencers, took responsibility for the weapons while they were in the commune, and disposed of them when members of the murder conspiracy decided to flee the U.S. for Europe. In July 1991, Carol Matthews entered a guilty plea and was convicted in federal court, she was sentenced to five years in prison.

Catherine Jane Stork was convicted of the attempted murder of Rajneesh's physician Dr. George Meredith (Swami Devaraj) in 1986, and served almost three years in jail. After her release, agents from the FBI uncovered the plot to assassinate Turner, but Stork had already fled to Germany. She was indicted by a federal grand jury in 1990. In 1991, the German government refused to extradite Stork back to the United States. In June 1991, U.S. prosecutors filed affidavits in the murder conspiracy case with the Higher Regional Court in Karlsruhe, Germany, as part of an attempt to extradite Catherin Jane Stork from Germany to the U.S. The affidavits stated that all of the members in the murder conspiracy plot also belonged to a group of Rajneesh followers at the Oregon commune known as "the 38", and were trained in "commando tactics using Uzi semiautomatic rifles and handguns". David Berry Knapp (known to Rajneesh followers as Swami Krishna Deva) stated in an FBI affidavit that the murder conspiracy was motivated by Ma Anand Sheela's "tremendous anger" towards Turner.

Ma Anand Sheela served 29 months in a minimum security federal prison for charges related to assault, attempted murder, arson, wiretapping and the 1984 bioterror attack in The Dalles, and moved to Switzerland after her release from prison in 1988. The assassination conspiracy was discovered after Sheela had left the United States, and as of 1999 she was still wanted by federal law enforcement for her role in the plot, and risked extradition if she crossed the Swiss border. Switzerland declined an extradition request from the United States, and instead tried her in a Swiss court. Sheela was found guilty of "criminal acts preparatory to the commission of murder" in 1999, and sentenced to time already served.

Sally-Anne Croft and Susan Hagan were extradited from Britain in 1994, and were convicted by a jury decision on July 28, 1995 for their roles in the assassination plot. They had unsuccessfully attempted to appeal their extradition from Britain to Home Secretary Michael Howard. During their trial the prosecution presented twenty-nine witnesses, including former followers of Rajneesh who placed both women in planning meetings where they discussed murdering Turner. David Berry Knapp, the former mayor of Rajneeshpuram, testified for the government in the case and implicated Croft and Hagan in the assassination conspiracy. Ava Kay Avalos (Ma Ava), a Rajneesh disciple, testified in the Croft case and stated that she had been part of the conspirators that plotted to assassinate Turner. In addition to Knapp and Avalos, co-conspirators Richard Kevin Langford, Phyllis Caldwell, and Alma Peralta testified in the case pursuant to conditional plea or immunity agreements. Both women were sentenced to five years in prison. Croft and Hagan did not testify during their trial. "We hashed over everything – evidence, notes, evidence, notes. I think we did an absolutely fabulous job," said one of the jurors. At the sentencing for Croft and Hagan, the federal Judge Malcolm Marsh described them as "people of obvious goodwill who had committed an extremely serious offense against the criminal justice system." Prosecutor Tim Reardon called the conspiracy to commit assassination "a deadly serious crime aimed at the heart of the criminal justice system." Croft and Hagan were released from imprisonment at FCI Dublin, California in April 1998, and returned to Britain.

In December 2002, Ann Phyllis McCarthy pled guilty to conspiracy to commit murder, and was sentenced to one year in jail and a fine of USD$ 10,000. McCarthy had served as fourth-in-command of Rajneeshpuram, and was known by Rajneesh's followers as Ma Yoga Vidya. Turner called the one-year prison sentence "laughable." In court statements, McCarthy stated "I cannot forgive myself for not being tougher at the time," and called her time with the group "psychological torture."

In February 2006, Stork became the last perpetrator sentenced in the political assassination plot, after ten months of negotiations with Oregon prosecutors. Stork offered to turn herself in and return to the United States after learning of her son's terminal brain tumor. Prior to sentencing, the court allowed her to travel to Australia to visit her son. In addition to charges of conspiracy to commit murder, Stork also pled guilty to the purchase of weapons in violation of federal firearms law. An Oregon judge sentenced her to five years probation, and three months time already served in a German jail. Turner thought she should have received a harsher sentence, and commented "This was a lying-in-wait conspiracy to murder me, a presidential appointee, and for a long time I slept with a loaded gun beside my bed." Though Stork could have faced life in prison, U.S. District Judge Judge Malcolm F. Marsh thought she had "seen the error of her ways." A federal prosecutor in the case described Stork as the "MVP" of the conspiracy, and said she was the designated assassin that was set to murder Turner. After her sentencing, Stork stated: "I actually conspired to kill Mr. Turner, it is up to me alone to face this terrible truth ... No person has the right to do what I did. I'm truly sorry." Stork returned to Germany after her sentencing.

In an affidavit, Timothy J. Reardon III, lead prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice in the case, stated Ma Anand Sheela had told members of the murder conspiracy that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh had personally authorized the "necessary" murder of specific enemies of the Rajneesh commune. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh paid a fine of US$400,000, agreed to plead guilty to immigration fraud, and was deported from the United States. He agreed to leave the United States and not return unless given permission first from the United States Attorney General. Joseph T. McCann writes in Terrorism on American Soil "Nevertheless, he was never prosecuted for any of the more serious crimes perpetrated by cult members, including the salmonella poisoning."