Bringing a bizarre chapter in Oregon's history to a close, a disciple of the guru 'Bhagwan' Shree Rajneesh pleaded guilty to conspiring to kill the United States Attorney for Oregon, the US Department of Justice has announced.
Catherine Jane Stubbs, known as Ma Shanti Bhadra, joins 6 other followers who earlier pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of Charles Turner.
Beginning in 1981, Rajneesh, assembled a commune of some 7,000 adherents on a 100-square-mile ranch in Antelope, Oregon. The commune members plotted to take over the local county government in 1984, spiking local salad bars with salmonella in an effort to incapacitate non-Rajneeshee voters.
The action sickened some 750 people and crippled the local economy as fear spread.
In May 1985, Sheela Silverman, Shree Rajneesh's second-in-command also known as Ma Anand Sheela, called a meeting to plot Turner's assassination, according to court records.
The grand jury investigation Turner was leading 'threatened the existence of the commune' because it exposed several of the disciples as well as the guru himself to criminal prosecution, the Department of Justice said.
In 1990, Rajneesh died in India, after being deported. Silverman, a Swiss national, was convicted in 1999 by a Swiss court.
A year later, the Shree Rajneesh's inner circle conspired to kill Turner, after the attorney was appointed to head a federal grand jury investigation of the commune. At the meeting, Stubbs volunteered to be the killer. She later bought weapons and scouted Turner's property, justice officials said.
Stubbs and 6 other disciples were indicted in 1990. But Stubbs refused to leave Germany, where she is a naturalized citizen.
In 1991, Germany declined an extradition request from the United States.
Last week, Stubbs voluntarily returned to Portland. Besides the charge of conspiracy to kill, Stubbs also pleaded guilty to buying weapons in violation of federal firearms law. The court will allow Stubbs to visit Australia, where her son is sick with incurable brain cancer. Stubbs will be sentenced December 6.
"With the sentencing of Stubbs, all 7 indicted defendants will have been convicted for their roles in the conspiracy," the Department of Justice said in a press release on Monday.
