A group of prominent followers of Rajneesh (later known as Osho) 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.

Two leading Rajneeshpuram officials were convicted on charges of attempted murder and served 29 months of 20-year sentences in a minimum-security federal prison.

[9] The group had started on friendly terms with the local population, but relations soon degraded because of land-use conflicts and the commune's dramatic expansion.

[10][11] The Wasco County clerk countered this attempt at voter-suppression by enforcing a regulation that required all new voters to submit their qualifications when registering to vote.

[17] Victims ranged in age from an infant, born two days after his mother's infection and initially given a five percent chance of survival,[11] to an 87-year-old.

They turned out in droves on Election Day to prevent the cult from winning any county positions, thus rendering the plot unsuccessful.

[21] The outbreak cost local restaurants hundreds of thousands of dollars and health officials shut down the salad bars of the affected establishments.

[20] The investigation identified the bacteria as Salmonella enterica Typhimurium and initially concluded that the outbreak had been due to food handlers' poor personal hygiene.

[14][23][24] Oregon Democratic Congressman James H. Weaver continued to investigate because he believed that the officials' conclusion did not adequately explain the facts.

[8][26] Calling them a "gang of fascists", he said they had tried to poison his doctor and Rajneesh's female companion, as well as the Jefferson County district attorney and the water system in The Dalles.

Rajneesh voiced suspicions that they had poisoned a county commissioner and Judge William Hulse, and that they may have been responsible for the salmonellosis outbreak in The Dalles.

[26] Oregon Attorney General David B. Frohnmayer established a task force among the Wasco County Sheriff's office, the Oregon State Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the National Guard that set up headquarters at Rajneeshpuram to investigate the allegations.

Skeels found glass vials containing Salmonella "bactrol disks" in the laboratory of a Rajneeshpuram medical clinic.

Analysis by the CDC lab in Atlanta confirmed that the bacteria from the Rajneesh laboratory were an exact match to those that sickened individuals who had eaten at local restaurants.

[14] As a result of the bioterrorism investigation, law enforcement officials discovered that there had been an aborted plot by Rajneeshees to murder Charles Turner, a former United States Attorney for Oregon.

[27] An invoice dated September 25, 1984, from the American Type Culture Collection of microbes was discovered, showing an order received by the Rajneeshpuram laboratory for Salmonella typhi, the bacterium that causes the life-threatening illness typhoid fever.

[14][28] The mayor of Rajneeshpuram, David Berry Knapp (Swami Krishna Deva; also known as KD), turned state's evidence and gave an account of his knowledge of the Salmonella attack to the FBI.

He claimed that Sheela said "she had talked with [Rajneesh] about the plot to decrease voter turnout in The Dalles by making people sick.

"[30] According to a 1994 study published in the journal Sociology of Religion, "[m]ost sannyasins indicated that they believed that [Rajneesh] knew about Ma Anand Sheela's illegal activities.

[26] 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.

[34] 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.

[11][16][34] 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.

"[20] 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.

[12][42][43] 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.

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.

[46][47][48][49] 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.

[53] 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.