07:20 PM PDT on Monday, September 26, 2005

By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, Associated Press Writer

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.

Catherine Jane Stubbs, known as Ma Shanti Bhadra, joins six other followers who earlier pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of Charles Turner.

AP photo

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

Beginning in 1981, Rajneesh, a holy man from the Indian city of Pune, assembled a commune of some 7,000 adherents on a 100-square-mile ranch in Antelope, Ore.

The commune members plotted to take over the local county government in 1984, spiking local salad bars 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.

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

Last week, Stubbs voluntarily returned to Portland. Besides the charge of conspiracy to kill, Stubbs also pleaded guilty to buying weapons in violation of federal firearms law.

The court will allow Stubbs to visit Australia, where her son is sick with incurable brain cancer. Stubbs will be sentenced Dec. 6.

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 Department of Justice said.

At the meeting, Stubbs volunteered to be the killer. She later bought weapons and scouted Turner's property, justice officials said.

"With the sentencing of Stubbs, all seven indicted defendants will have been convicted for their roles in the conspiracy," the Department of Justice said in a press release.

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

In the Indian city of Pune, the group lives on in a sprawling campus, surrounded by well-tended parks.