1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot
| 1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot | |
|---|---|
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| Location | Portland, Oregon, USA |
| Coordinates | 45°30′57″N 122°40′35″W / 45.51583°N 122.67639°WCoordinates: 45°30′57″N 122°40′35″W / 45.51583°N 122.67639°W |
| Date | 1985 |
| Target | Charles H. Turner, United States Attorney for the District of Oregon |
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Attack type
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Conspiracy to commit assassination |
| Weapons | Pistols, handguns |
| Perpetrators | Ma Anand Sheela, Alma Potter, Sally-Anne Croft, Susan Hagan, Ann Phyllis McCarthy, Catherine Jane Stork, Richard Kevin Langford, Carol Matthews, Phyllis Caldwell and Ava Avalos; an additional unindicted member of Rajneesh commune |
The 1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot was a conspiracy by a group of high-ranking followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (later known as Osho) to assassinate Charles Turner, the then-United States Attorney for the District of Oregon. Rajneesh's personal secretary and second-in-command, Ma Anand Sheela (Sheela Silverman), assembled the group after Turner was appointed to investigate illegal activity at Rajneeshpuram. Turner investigated charges of immigration fraud and sham marriages, and later headed the federal prosecution of the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack in The Dalles, Oregon.
The conspirators included: Ma Anand Sheela, Sally-Anne Croft, Chief Financial Officer of Rajneeshpuram; Susan Hagan, head of security at Rajneeshpuram, Catherine Jane Stork, who bought weapons and silencers and volunteered to be the actual murderer; Ann Phyllis McCarthy, fourth-in-command of Rajneeshpuram; and co-conspirators Alma Potter, Carol Matthews, Phyllis Caldwell and Richard Kevin Langford. Two of the conspirators obtained false identification to purchase handguns out-of-state, stalked Turner, and planned to murder him near his workplace in Portland, Oregon. The assassination plot was never carried out and was only discovered later, as a result of the investigation by federal law enforcement into the bioterror attack in The Dalles and other illegal acts by the Rajneeshpuram leadership.
Prosecution of the conspirators began in 1990, when a federal grand jury brought indictments against several of the key players. Some had fled the country, and extradition proceedings against the perpetrators and subsequent prosecution and conviction was not completed for sixteen years. The final conspirator was convicted in 2006, when Catherine Jane Stork agreed to return to the United States from Germany in order to be allowed to visit her ill son in Australia. Eight perpetrators received sentences ranging from five years probation to five years in federal prison and an additional member of the Rajneesh commune pleaded guilty to murder conspiracy. Rajneesh was never prosecuted in relation to the conspiracy, and left the United States after pleading guilty to immigration fraud and agreeing not to reenter the country without permission from the U.S. Attorney General.
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