Two followers of the Indian mystic Rajneesh were convicted of a 1985 plot to assassinate Charles Turner, the U.S. attorney for the District of Oregon.
Rajneesh movement
The Rajneesh movement is a new 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.
Rajneesh
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.
1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot
In 1985, a group of high-ranking Rajneeshees, followers of the Indian mystic 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.
Charles H. Turner (attorney)
Charles Hamilton 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.