...University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer...

...He was Oregon's attorney general in the 1980s when followers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in Central Oregon were charged with criminal offenses, including the mass poisoning of hundreds of residents in The Dalles. Frohnmayer said the followers were "an authentic theocracy" that employed religious zeal as a way to bully other people.

In prosecuting the guru's followers, as with all matters involving religious faith in the public realm, it's crucial to distinguish between people's beliefs and behaviors, Frohnmayer said. "Thoughts can run wild without hurting anyone," he said. "But bad behavior - behavior that hurts not just feelings but the physical welfare of others - cannot be tolerated."...

...

1984

In Oregon, members of a commune led by guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh tried to influence a local land-use vote by spreading salmonella to their neighbors. Members of the group produced the bacterium in a lab and poisoned food at 10 local restaurants. No one died, but 751 people became ill...

Catherine Jane Stork, also known as Catherine Jane Stubbs and formerly as Ma Shanti Bhadra, was sentenced to time already served...

PORTLAND � Bringing a bizarre chapter in Oregon's history to a close, a disciple of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh pleaded guilty to conspiring to kill the United States Attorney for Oregon, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday.

Catherine Jane Stubbs, known as Ma Shanti Bhadra...

Cult crime - An ex-follower returns to Oregon from Germany and admits plotting to kill a prosecutor

...Catherine Jane Stork, 60, described by federal authorities as a top lieutenant in the commune, voluntarily flew to Portland from her home in Germany to face the 15-year-old federal charges...

Bringing a bizarre chapter in Oregon's history to a close, a disciple of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh pleaded guilty to conspiring to kill the United States Attorney for Oregon, the U.S. Department of Justice announced late Monday.

Phyllis McCarthy, 55, voluntarily flew from South Africa to plead guilty.

The former president of the Rajneeshee commune said she took personal responsibility for going along with the abortive 1985 plot to murder Charles Turner, who was then Oregon's U.S. attorney, after he began investigating the cult...)

Most followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh were not wild-eyed fanatics, but members of the middle class -- lawyers, doctors, accountants, teachers and other well-educated people who seemed normal enough...

...seemingly normal, well-educated people can be persuaded to commit unthinkable crimes, including flying airliners into skyscrapers...)

THE DALLES, OREGON

CULT ATTACK: The small town of The Dalles, near Portland, Oregon, was in 1984 the first place in America hit with germ warfare. The people of the town say that the country will get through this as well

In 1984, followers of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh spiked salad bars at 10 restaurants in town with salmonella and sickened about 750 people...

The cult members had hoped to incapacitate so many voters that their own candidates in the county elections would win...

...Seventeen years later, there are lots of things this quiet town would like to be known for...But not its role as the site of the first bioterrorism attack in modern U.S. history...) (Photo of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh included.)

Only 239 of 7,000 disciples of an Indian guru and...failing to carry out a threatened attempt to takeover a rural county government. But a spokesman for Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh...