APut 12/11 1042 Sheela-Oregon THE DALLES, Ore. (AP) -- The Oregon attorney general's offi

APut 12/11 1042 Sheela-Oregon


   THE  DALLES, Ore. (AP) -- The Oregon attorney general's office
has gone to court  to  try  to  bring  Ma  Anand  Sheela,  former
secretary  to  Indian  guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, back to Wasco
County to submit to a debtor's exam.

   The Oregon attorney general's office filed a motion  in  Wasco
County  Circuit  Court Thursday to bring Sheela to The Dalles, at
the state's expense, from  the  Pleasanton  Federal  Correctional
Institution in Dublin, Calif.

   The  state  wants  Sheela to take the exam to determine if she
had the resources to pay the $269,353 she owes  as  part  of  her
plea bargain agreement with Oregon authorities in April 1986.

   Sheela,   38,   served   as  secretary  to  the  guru  at  his
Rajneeshpuram  commune  in  Wasco  County  and   headed   several
Rajneeshee  corporations  before  she  left the United States and
traveled to West Germany in September 1985.

   She subsequently was arrested  there  and  extradited  to  the
United  States  to  face  a variety of state and federal charges,
including arson, mass poisoning, attempted murder and immigration
fraud.

   She pleaded guilty to, among other things, participating in  a
plot  to  kill  the guru's physician with a poison-filled syringe
and orchestrating a food-poisoning outbreak  that  sickened  more
than 750 people in The Dalles.

   Sheela was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in a federal penitentiary.
As  part  of  a  plea  bargain  deal, she agreed to pay the state
$469,353, but only has paid $200,000, state officials said.

   As part of the agreement, she  also  agreed  to  submit  to  a
polygraph  examination and a sworn debtor's exam, which the state
has tried to obtain for more than a year.

   An affadavit signed by Assistant Attorney  General  H.  Robert
Hamilton  that  accompanied  the  state's  motion  said the state
unsuccessfully tried Sept. 1 to perform the debtor's exam at  the
Pleasanton facility.

   But,  the  affadavit  said, Sheela refused at the direction of
her attorneys to answer any questions.

   Her attorneys  objected  to  the  fact  the  exam  was  to  be
videotaped as well as tape recorded, the affadavit said.

   Sheela  has  taken  a  debtor's  exam  for the U.S. attorney's
office but the state has been unable to  obtain  a  copy  of  the
document, Hamilton said.

   Lee  Ann  Baarstad, the Wasco County trial court clerk, said a
telephone conference call would be scheduled in late December  to
allow  Circuit  Judge John Jelderks, the attorney general's staff
and Shela's attorney, Stephen A. Houze of  Portland,  to  discuss
how to proceed with the motion.

   Rajneesh,  the  self-described  "rich  man's  guru,"  left the
United  States  in  November  1985  after  pleading   guilty   to
immigration charges.  He now lives in Poona, India.