03:54 PM PST on Monday, January 30, 2006

By JIM PARKER, kgw.com Staff

A disciple of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was sentenced Monday in Portland to five years probation for her lead role in a conspiracy more than 20 years ago to kill the United States Attorney for Oregon, bringing closure to a bizarre chapter in the state's history.

KGW photo

Catherine Jane Stork, once known as Ma Shanti Bhadra, leaves the federal courthouse in Portland accompanied by her husband.

Catherine Jane Stork, also known as Catherine Jane Stubbs and formerly as Ma Shanti Bhadra, was sentenced to time already served stemming from three months she spent in a German jail during a 1991 extradition battle. Stork, who will return to Germany on Tuesday, will be on five years' probation there.

She could have faced life in prison, but U.S. District Judge Malcom F. Marsh said he was convinced that Stork, 60, "has seen the error of her ways."

"I think there are times where justice trumps mercy. There are other times mercy trumps justice. We have such a case here," the judge explained.

Stork was the last of seven followers to be convicted of the attempted murder of then-U.S. Attorney Charles Turner. The others were sentenced to prison for two to five years.

Federal prosecutor T.J. Reardon on Monday described Stork as the "MVP" of the conspiracy, saying she was the designated assasin who was actually supposed to kill Turner.

"This case fortunately resulted in no bloodshed," Reardon said. "But it was an evil, evil plan that took its toll for years and years upon its victim."

Stork cried at times as she delivered an apology in court and expressed remorse prior to her sentencing.

"I actually conspired to kill Mr. Turner, it is up to me alone to face this terrible truth," Stork said. "No person has the right to do what I did. I'm truly sorry."

AP file photo

Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh speaks to a small gathering at Rajneeshpuram, Ore., in Sept. 1985.

Stork said she became involved with the late Bhagwan after listening to his inspirational tapes when her husband Roger took ill in Australia. The couple was so moved by his message that they traveled to India to meet him and later lived in his commune on a sprawling campus, surrounded by well-tended parks in the Indian city of Pune.

In 1981 when the holy man Rajneesh moved the commune of his 7,000 adherents to the 100-square-mile Big Muddy Ranch in the central Oregon town of Antelope, Stork along with her husband and two children followed.

"I believed he was perfection itself. Pure and wise in every way," she explained on Monday. "Little did I realize I was stepping into the abyss."

The commune members plotted to take over Wasco County government in 1984, spiking local salad bars in The Dalles area with salmonella in an effort to incapacitate non-Rajneeshee voters. The action sickened some 750 people and crippled the local economy as fear spread.

A year later, the Bhagwan's inner circle conspired to kill Turner, after the attorney was appointed to head a federal grand jury investigation of the commune.

Stork and six other disciples were indicted in 1990. But Stork refused to leave Germany, where she is a naturalized citizen. In 1991, Germany declined an extradition request from the United States.

Last year, Stork voluntarily returned to Portland in order to be free to travel to Australia to visit her dying son. Besides pleading guilty to a charge of conspiracy to kill at the time, Stork also admitted buying weapons in violation of federal firearms law.

AP photo

Ma Anand Sheela, former personal secretary to Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, speaks during a September 1987 interview.

In May of 1985, Sheela Silverman, the Bhagwan'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 U.S. Department of Justice said.

At the meeting, Stork -- who said she was recruited into the inner circle by Silverman -- volunteered to be the killer. Stork later bought weapons and scouted Turner's property, she admitted in court.

In 1990, Rajneesh died in India, after being deported. Silverman, a Swiss national, was convicted in 1999 by a Swiss court.

As for Stork, "I think I'll be paying for the rest of my life," she said outside the courtroom Monday as her case finally came to a close. "My debt is great."

(KGW reporter Pat Dooris and the Associated Press contributed to this report.)