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Wasco County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census,the population was 25,213. Its county seat is The Dalles. The county is named for a local tribe of Native Americans,the Wasco,a Chinook tribe who live on the south side of the Columbia River. It is near the Washington state line. Wasco County comprises The Dalles Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Antelope is a town in rural Wasco County,Oregon,United States. Antelope had an estimated population of 47 people in 2012.
Rajneesh,also known as Acharya Rajneesh,Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh,and later as Osho,was an Indian Godman,philosopher,mystic,and founder of the Rajneesh movement. He was viewed as a controversial new religious movement leader during his life. He rejected institutional religions,insisting that spiritual experience could not be organized into any one system of religious dogma. As a guru,he advocated meditation and taught a unique form called dynamic meditation. Rejecting traditional ascetic practices,he advocated that his followers live fully in the world but without attachment to it. In expressing a more progressive attitude to sexuality he caused controversy in India during the late 1960s and became known as "the sex guru".
James Joseph "Whitey" Bulger Jr. was an American organized crime boss who led the Winter Hill Gang in the Winter Hill neighborhood of Somerville,Massachusetts,a city directly northwest of Boston. On December 23,1994,Bulger fled the Boston area and went into hiding after his former FBI handler,John Connolly,tipped him off about a pending RICO indictment against him. Bulger remained at large for sixteen years. After his 2011 arrest,federal prosecutors tried Bulger for nineteen murders based on grand jury testimony from Kevin Weeks and other former criminal associates.
Rajneeshpuram was a religious intentional community in the northwest United States,located in Wasco County,Oregon. Incorporated as a city between 1981 and 1988,its population consisted entirely of Rajneeshees,followers of the spiritual teacher Rajneesh,later known as Osho.
The Rajneesh movement is a religious movement inspired by the Indian mystic Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (1931–1990),also known as Osho. They used to be known as Rajneeshees or "Orange People" because of the orange they used from 1970 until 1985. Members of the movement are sometimes called Oshoites in the Indian press.
Leroy David Baca is a former American law enforcement officer who served as the 30th Sheriff of Los Angeles County,California from 1998 to 2014. In 2017,he was convicted of felony obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI.
Ma Anand Sheela is an Indian-Swiss woman who was the spokesperson of the Rajneesh movement. In 1986,she was convicted for attempted murder and assault for her role in the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack.
John "Sonny" Franzese Sr. was an American mobster who was a longtime member and former underboss of the Colombo crime family.
In 1984,751 people suffered food poisoning in The Dalles,Oregon,United States,due to the deliberate contamination of salad bars at ten local restaurants with Salmonella. A group of prominent followers of Rajneesh led by Ma Anand Sheela had hoped to incapacitate the voting population of the city so that their own candidates would win the 1984 Wasco County elections. The incident was the first and is still the single largest bioterrorist attack in U.S. history.
In 1985,a group of high-ranking Rajneeshees,followers of the Indian mystic Shree Rajneesh,conspired to assassinate Charles Turner,the then-United States Attorney for the District of Oregon. Rajneesh's personal secretary and second-in-command,Ma Anand Sheela,assembled the group after Turner was appointed to investigate illegal activity at the followers' community,Rajneeshpuram. Turner investigated charges of immigration fraud and sham marriages,and later headed the federal prosecution of the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack in The Dalles,Oregon.
Harold Charles "Hal" Turner is an American far-right political commentator and convicted felon from North Bergen,New Jersey.
Charles H. Turner was an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Oregon. Prior to his presidential appointment as U.S. Attorney,Turner worked under his predecessor,Sidney I. Lezak,for 14 years. He was appointed as Lezak's replacement by President Ronald Reagan.
Breaking the Spell:My Life as a Rajneeshee and the Long Journey Back to Freedom is a non-fiction book by Catherine Jane Stork about her experiences as a Rajneeshee,a follower of Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. It was published in April 2009 by Pan Macmillan. Stork was raised in Western Australia in a Catholic upbringing,and met her first husband while at university in Perth,Australia. After a psychotherapist introduced Stork to teachings of Rajneesh,she became involved in the movement and moved with her husband to an ashram in Poona,India. Stork later moved to the Rajneesh commune in Rajneeshpuram,Oregon. She became involved in criminal activities while at Rajneeshpuram,participated in an attempted murder against Rajneesh's doctor,and an assassination plot against the U.S. Attorney for Oregon,Charles H. Turner. Stork served time in jail but later lived in exile in Germany for 16 years,after a German court had denied extradition to the United States. She returned to the U.S. to face criminal charges after learning of her son's terminal cancer condition. Stork discusses her process of reevaluating the effects her actions within the Rajneesh organization had on other people and on her family.
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Solomon Dwek is an Israeli-American real estate investor who was convicted of felony fraud. He became an FBI informant.
Richard Wershe Jr.,known as "White Boy Rick",is an American former drug trafficker and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant. The youngest known informant in the history of the FBI,Wershe became a confidential informant when he was 14 to 16 years old. When he was 15,Wershe told the FBI that a major drug dealer had spoken of paying a bribe to Detroit detective inspector and subsequent city council president and mayoral candidate Gil Hill in order to quash the investigation into a 13-year-old boy's murder. At the age of 17,Wershe was arrested for possession of 8 kg of cocaine and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2017,justice campaigners publicized Wershe's case and he was subsequently paroled,but directly to a prison in Florida to serve another five years for an auto theft conviction from 2008. Campaigners for Wershe have suggested to reporters that the length of his incarceration may have been connected to him having provided the FBI with information leading to the arrest of family members and associates of former Detroit mayor Coleman A. Young,as well as the allegation about Young's political ally Hill. In 2016,a notorious former Detroit hitman alleged Hill had once tried to commission the murder of Wershe.
Wild Wild Country is a Netflix documentary series about the controversial Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho),his one-time personal assistant Ma Anand Sheela,and their community of followers in the Rajneeshpuram community located in Wasco County,Oregon,US. It was released on Netflix on March 16,2018,after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. The title of the series is drawn from the Bill Callahan song "Drover",which features prominently in the final episode,and it also echoes the comments of Jane Stork about first seeing the ranch,shown at the beginning of episode 2:"it was just so wild,so rugged,but vast—really wild country".
Philip John Toelkes,also known as Swami Prem Niren and Philip Niren Toelkes,is an American lawyer and follower of Rajneesh who served as the second mayor of Rajneeshpuram from 1985 until the commune's disbandment in 1986. He served as the personal Lawyer of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
Ma Prem Hasya,or Françoise Ruddy or Hasya-Françoise Ruddy,was a French-American follower of Rajneesh who served as his personal secretary after Ma Anand Sheela. She is featured in archive footage in the Netflix documentary series,Wild Wild Country about Rajneesh,and is depicted in the 2022 miniseries The Offer about her then-husband Albert S. Ruddy's experience making The Godfather (1972).
References
- ↑ Herzog, Kenny (2018-03-27). "Wild Wild Country: Where Are They Now?". Vulture. Archived from the original on 2020-12-05. Retrieved 2020-12-27.
- ↑ Carus, W. Seth; Research, Center for Counterproliferation; University, National Defense (2002). Bioterrorism and Biocrimes: The Illicit Use of Biological Agents Since 1900. The Minerva Group, Inc. ISBN 9781410100238. Archived from the original on 2023-09-04. Retrieved 2018-06-13.
- ↑ "Former Rajneeshpuram Mayor Sentenced To Prison". AP NEWS. Retrieved 2020-12-27.
- 1 2 "02-krishna-deva-fbi-statement.pdf" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-11-12. Retrieved 2020-12-27.
- 1 2 3 "'Wild Wild Country': Most Shocking Reveals From the Sex Cult's FBI Informant". The Daily Beast . April 2, 2018. Archived from the original on July 25, 2020. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
- 1 2 Jonathan B. Tucker, ed. (2000). Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons. MIT Press. p. 129. ISBN 978-0262700719.
- ↑ AP (25 November 1986). "AROUND THE NATION; Ex-Leader of Commune Gets 2-Year Sentence". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2018-06-13. Retrieved 2018-06-13.
- ↑ "Ex-Rajneesh Mayor Sentenced". Los Angeles Times. Associated Press. 1986-11-24. ISSN 0458-3035. Archived from the original on 2018-06-05. Retrieved 2018-06-13.
- ↑ Judith Miller (2002). Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War. Simon & Schuster. p. 26. ISBN 0684871599.
- ↑ "Where are they now?". Oregon Live . Archived from the original on June 5, 2020. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
- ↑ Bryn Elise Sandberg (June 1, 2018). "'Wild Wild Country' Filmmakers Reveal the One Person Who Refused to Be Interviewed". The Hollywood Reporter . Archived from the original on June 6, 2020. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
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