Ma Anand Sheela

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Ma Anand Sheela
Alias(es) Sheela Silverman, Sheela Birnstiel
Penalty twenty years for attempted murder, twenty years for first degree assault, ten years for second degree assault, four and a half years for product tampering, four and a half years for wiretapping conspiracy, five years' probation for immigration fraud
Status Served twenty-nine months in minimum-security federal prison, released on good behavior in 1988
Occupation Owner and operator of two nursing homes, Switzerland[1]

Ma Anand Sheela (Sheela Silverman, later Sheela Birnstiel) was the personal secretary of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, later known as Osho, from 1981 to 1985, and the main manager and spokesperson of the controversial Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, commune.

Set up under false pretenses (the true size of the envisioned development was initially downplayed[2]), the growing commune soon found itself embattled. Faced with intense hostility from Oregonians and a growing array of legal, legislative and personal challenges, Sheela's defense tactics became increasingly desperate, gradually morphing into actual criminal behavior.[2]

Following her acrimonious split from Rajneesh and the collapse of the Rajneeshpuram commune, Sheela served almost three years of a twenty year sentence in prison for the attempted murder of Rajneesh's personal physician, first and second degree assault (poisoning) of public officials, immigration fraud, wiretapping within Rajneeshpuram, and causing a salmonella food poisoning epidemic in The Dalles, Oregon.[2] In 1988, she was released early for good behaviour and deported.[2]

She now lives in Switzerland, being the widow of a Swiss citizen.[1]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Senior, Jeanie; Dave Hogan. "Indian guru follower Anand Sheela arrested after German TV show: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's former spokeswoman is freed because a Swiss court already convicted her in 1999", The Oregonian, January 22, 2000. 
  2. ^ a b c d Carter, Lewis F. (1990). Charisma and Control in Rajneeshpuram. Cambridge University Press, Pages 124, 195, 237. ISBN 0521385547. 

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