25 years to Oregon salmonella bioterrorism
bought the Big Muddy Ranch in Wasco County, OR for a commune that eventually attracted 4,000 followers. It was enough to take over the nearby village of Antelope and soon enough was testing the county’s land use and building powers.
As they sought to take control of Wasco County, the commune’s first plan was to collect enough homeless people off the streets of Portland and Seattle to vote in local elections, but the county was challenging those registrations. With a “Share-a-Home” plan failing, they turned to making cultures of Salmonella bacteria in the commune’s own laboratories.
The goal was simple. Make enough non-Rajneesh voters sick enough that they fail to vote in the local elections. The Rajneesh minority in the county would then dominate the county commission and sheriff’s offices that the commune desperately wanted to take over.
About a dozen cult members were involved in the plot. Ma Anand Sheela (Sheela Silverman) was a trained nurse practitioner. Ma Anand Puja (Diane Ivonne Onang) was the on-site nurse at the Ranch’s medical clinic.
Poisoning the salad bars was supposed to be a trial run before putting the bacteria into The Dalles’ public water system closer to election day. When it became clear that the homeless people they had recruited would not be allowed to vote, Rajneesh’s followers instead decided to boycott the election.
So phase II was never executed. By going public with a well reasoned, but only circumstantial case, Weaver says he was given “no credence” by the Oregon news media. He was called paranoid and a “Rajneesh basher.”
About six months later, Weaver picked up an unlikely ally in his suspicions — the Bhagwan himself. The cult leader was in self-imposed isolation and had not spoken publicly for four years until shortly before 16 September 1985 when he held a press conference. He charged that Ma Anand Sheela and nineteen others, who had recently fled to Europe, were responsible for a number of crimes.
He invited state and federal officials to come to the ranch to investigate. Oregon’s Attorney General headed up a state-federal task force that entered the ranch on 2 October 1985. Glass vials containing Salmonella were found in the lab. CDC found it to be an exact match to the bacteria that sickened people who ate at the restaurant salad bars.
The task force also found evidence that the cult’s lab had experimented with other poisons, chemicals, and bacteria. They also found a copy of “The Anarchist Cookbook,” about explosives and bioterrorism.
During his isolation, the Bhagwan’s only contact with the outside world was through Ma Anand Sheela. He said she used the time to create “a fascist state.” He was never charged in the Salmonella outbreak. He did plead guilty to violating immigration laws, was given a 10-year suspended sentence, fined $400,000, and deported.
He died in India in 1990 at age 58.
Sheela and Puja were arrested in Germany and extradited to the United States to face charges. They eventually entered no contest pleas to numerous crimes including the Salmonella poisonings. They received multiple sentences running from three to ten years, but were allowed to serve them concurrently.
With good behavior, both were released after 29 months. Sheela was deported to Switzerland.
