The Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh said his showcase of communal living in Oregon would set an example for the world, but at his death Friday his commune was vacant and unwanted, his followers scattered, his memory reviled. Rajneesh came to Oregon in 1981. By the time he was thrown out of the country in 1985, authorities were calling him the most notorious figure in Oregon history. ``He was both a charlatan and a very evil person,'' said Vic Atiyeh, the governor during the guru's years in Oregon. ``Evil in the sense of the kind of people he gathered around him and what he allowed them to do, and his own personal arrogance. He was above everything.'' U.S. Attorney Charles Turner, who prosecuted the guru on immigration fraud charges, said the 400 sham marriages among Rajneesh's disciples that led to the immigration charges, the poisoning of 750 people at restaurant salad bars and the commune's vast electronic eavesdropping network were the largest cases of their kind in American history. ``The legacy of crime that this man left here is unparalleled in American jurisprudence,'' Turner said. The bejeweled guru brought his gospel of meditation and free love to the United States on the pretense of obtaining treatment for a bad back. He never underwent that surgery, but moved to a 64,000-acre ranch his followers had purchased in the remote high desert of central Oregon. Their stated intent was to farm the land on Rancho Rajneesh, but they built homes, a hotel, restaurants, shops, an airport and a meditation hall, and then incorporated as the town of Rajneeshpuram. After it all fell apart, an insurance company foreclosed on Rancho Rajneesh, but has been unable to find a buyer. At its height, some 4,000 red-clad disciples lived at the commune. The gathering swelled to 15,000 when followers from around the world came for summer festivals. Between morning and evening meditation sessions with Rajneesh, disciples toiled 12 hours a day. In the early afternoon, they would stop work and line the dusty roads for the guru's daily ``drive-by'' in one of his more than 90 Rolls-Royces. Singing and swaying, the disciples tossed roses onto the car's hood while armed guards hovered overhead in a helicopter. Sect members won political control of the nearby community of Antelope, renaming it City of Rajneesh, and attempted to control voting in Wasco County by busing thousands of homeless people to the commune in 1984. After state officials ordered eligibility hearings for all new voter registration applicants in the county, the Rajneeshees and their transient guests boycotted the election. ``At the time we were going through it, we didn't realize how extraordinary it was,'' said Norma Paulus, who was secretary of state at the time. ``I can't think of any comparable incidents in American history.'' Rajneesh's acid-tongued secretary, Ma Anand Sheela, was a fixture in the state's media as she accused anyone who opposed the commune of bigotry. Lawsuits were filed by and against the Rajneeshees on issues ranging from slander to the constitutionality of Rajneeshpuram's incorporation. Rajneeshee-loathing spread throughout the state. Caps bearing the guru's likeness inside a rifle target were hot items. In September 1985, Sheela and about a dozen disciples left the commune abruptly. Rajneesh made accusations against her that triggered federal, state and local criminal investigations. Rajneesh was arrested the next month during a stopover at Charlotte, N.C., on a flight to Bermuda. He pleaded guilty to two counts of immigration fraud and returned to India under an agreement with federal officials. Sheela, now 39, was arrested in West Germany and returned to Oregon, where she pleaded guilty to charges that included the attempted murder of the guru's physician with a poison-filled syringe. She also admitted poisoning several county officials and masterminding the salad poisonings at restaurants in The Dalles, the county seat. She pleaded guilty to creating an electronic eavesdropping system at the commune and to setting fire to the county planning office. A guilty plea to immigration fraud stemmed from charges that she helped arrange sham marriages to allow Rajneesh's foreign disciples to remain in the United States. Sheela, a native of India, was deported in December 1988 after serving 2{ years in federal prison. Rajneeshees say about 200 of the guru's followers remain in Oregon, but keep a low profile. Attorney General Frohnmayer says the Rajneeshee episode resulted in the clarification of state laws in several areas. ``We learned from it,'' he said. ``It would be harder for a group bent on breaking the laws of civil government to move in to Oregon now.''
