judiously spliced and edited, rewriting history. it was a process many of us, including me, had been involved with in one way or another. whatever tapes she had in her possession proved nothing." john jay shelfer (swami prem jayananda), sheela's husband at rajneeshpuram, recalled in 2020 that "sheela was very good at framing the issues in a way that would invite osho's approval of whatever she approved to do. she might ask a general, broad question, get an answer, and then, she would go back and use that as osho authorising whatever it was that she wanted to do. she would provide and limit information as it would help support what she wanted." according to a 1994 study published in the journal sociology of religion, "ost sannyasins indicated that they believed that knew about ma anand sheela's illegal activities." frances fitzgerald writes in cities on a hill that most of rajneesh's followers "believed incapable of doing, or willing, violence against another person", and that almost all thought the responsibility for the criminality was sheela's—according to fitzgerald, the followers believed the guru had not known anything about it. carus writes in toxic terror that "there is no way to know to what extent participated in actual decision-making. his followers believed he was involved in every important decision that sheela made, but those allegations were never proven." rajneesh insisted that sheela, who he said was his only source of information during his period of isolation, used her position to impose "a fascist state" on the commune. he acknowledged that the key to her actions was his silence. rajneesh left oregon by plane on october 27, 1985, and was arrested when he landed in charlotte, north carolina, and charged with 35 counts of deliberate violations of immigration laws. as part of a plea agreement, he pleaded guilty to two counts of making false statements to immigration officials. rajneesh received a ten-year suspended sentence and a fine of us$400,000, and was deported and barred from reentering the u.s. for a period of five years. he was never prosecuted for crimes related to the salmonella attack. sheela and puja were arrested in west germany on october 28, 1985. after protracted negotiations between the two governments, they were extradited to the u.s., reaching portland on february 6, 1986. they were charged with attempting to murder rajneesh's personal physician, first-degree assault for poisoning judge william hulse, second-degree assault for poisoning the dalles commissioner raymond matthews, and product tampering for the poisonings in the dalles, as well as wiretapping and immigration offenses. the u.s. attorney's office handled the prosecution of the poisoning cases related to the ten restaurants, and the oregon attorney general's office prosecuted the poisoning cases of commissioner matthews and judge hulse. on july 22, 1986, both women entered alford pleas for the salmonella attack and the other charges, and received sentences ranging from three to twenty years, to be served concurrently. sheela received 20 years for the attempted murder of rajneesh's physician, 20 years for first-degree assault in the poisoning of judge hulse, ten years for second-degree assault in the poisoning of commissioner matthews, four-and-a-half years for her role in the attack, four-and-a-half years for the wiretapping conspiracy, and five years' probation for immigration fraud; puja received fifteen, fifteen, seven-and-a-half, and four-and-a-half years, respectively, for her role in the first four of these crimes, as well as three years' probation for the wiretapping conspiracy. both sheela and puja were released on parole early for good behavior, after serving twenty-nine months of their sentences in a minimum-security federal prison. sheela's green card was revoked; she moved to switzerland. she remarried there and went on to run two nursing homes. aftermath the rajneeshees committed the most significant crimes of their kind in the history of the united states ... the largest single incident of fraudulent marriages, the most massive scheme of wiretapping and bugging, and the largest mass poisoning. —oregon attorney general dave frohnmayer the oregonian ran a 20-part series on rajneesh's movement, beginning in june 1985, which included an investigation into the salmonella incident. as a result of a follow-up investigation, the oregonian learned that leslie l. zaitz, one of their investigative journalists, had been placed as number three on a top-ten hit list by sheela's group. frohnmayer commented on the poisoning incident and other acts perpetrated by the group, stating: "the rajneeshees committed the most significant crimes of their kind in the history of the united states ... the largest single incident of fraudulent marriages, the most massive scheme of wiretapping and bugging, and the largest mass poisoning." looking back on the incident, skeels stated, "we lost our innocence over this ... we really learned to be more suspicious ... the first significant biological attack on a u.s. community was not carried out by foreign terrorists smuggled into new york, but by legal residents of a u.s. community. the next time it happens it could be with more lethal agents ... we in public health are really not ready to deal with that." milton leitenberg noted in the 2005 work assessing the biological weapons and bioterrorism threat, "there is apparently no other 'terrorist' group that is known to have successfully cultured any pathogen." federal and state investigators requested that details of the incident not be published in the journal of the american medical association (jama) for twelve years, for they feared a description of the events could spark copycat crimes, and jama complied. no repeat attacks or hoaxes subsequently occurred, and a detailed account of the incident and investigation was published in jama in 1997. a 1999 empirical analysis in the journal emerging infectious diseases published by the cdc described six motivational factors associated with bioterrorism, including: charismatic leadership, no outside constituency, apocalyptic ideology, loner or splinter group, sense of paranoia and grandiosity, and defensive aggression. according to the article, the "rajneesh cult" satisfied all motivational factors except for an "apocalyptic ideology". an analysis in the book cults, religion and violence disputes the link to charismatic leadership, pointing out that in this and other cases, it was organizational lieutenants who played a pivotal role in the initiation of violence. arguing for a contextual rather than decisive view of charisma, the authors state that the attribution of outcomes to the personality of a single individual, even a charismatic leader, usually camouflages a far more complex field of social relationships. a plaque at the antelope post office commemorates local resistance to the "rajneesh invasion". u.s. media revisited the incident during the 2001 anthrax attacks. the 2001 publication of judith miller's germs: biological weapons and america's secret war, which contained an analysis and detailed description of the events, also brought discussion of the incident back into the news. residents of the dalles commented that they have an understanding of how bioterrorism can occur in the united states. the incident had spread fear in the community, and drained the local economy. all but one of the restaurants affected went out of business. in 2005, the oregon state land board agreed to sell 480 acres (1.9 km2) of wasco county, including rajneeshpuram, to the colorado-based youth ministry young life. on february 18, 2005, court tv aired an episode of forensic files about the incident, "'bio-attack' – oregon cult poisonings". the salmonellosis outbreak was also discussed in the media within the context of the 2006 north american e. coli outbreak. the book emerging infectious diseases: trends and issues cites the 1984 rajneeshee bioterror attack, along with the aum shinrikyo group's attempts to use anthrax and other agents, as exceptions to the belief "that only foreign-state supported groups have the resources to execute a credible bioterrorism event". according to deadly cultures: biological weapons since 1945, these are the only two confirmed uses of biological weapons for terrorist purposes to harm humans. the incident was the single largest bioterrorist attack in u.s. history. in the chapter "influencing an election: america's first modern bioterrorist attack" in his 2006 book terrorism on american soil: a concise history of plots and perpetrators from the famous to the forgotten, author joseph t. mccann concludes: "in every respect, the salmonella attack carried out by the cult members was a major bioterrorist attack that fortunately failed to achieve its ultimate goal and resulted in no fatalities."