Ma Anand Sheela, Date of Birth, Place of Birth

Ma Anand Sheela

former chief assistant for the Indian mystic Rajneesh

Date of Birth: 28-Dec-1949

Place of Birth: Vadodara, Gujarat, India

Profession: spokesperson

Nationality: United States, Switzerland, India

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn

Ma Anand Sheela (born 28 December 1949 as Sheela Ambalal Patel in India, also known as Sheela Birnstiel) is an Indian-born American–Swiss convicted criminal and former spokeswoman of the Rajneesh movement (aka Osho movement). As the personal secretary of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh from 1981 through 1985, she managed the Rajneeshpuram ashram in Wasco County, Oregon, United States.
In 1986, she pleaded guilty to attempted murder and assault for her role in the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack.
She was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison and paroled after 39 months.
Sheela later moved to Switzerland, where she married, and purchased two nursing homes.
In 1999, she was convicted by a Swiss court of "criminal acts preparatory to the commission of murder" in relation to a plot to kill US federal prosecutor Charles Turner in 1985. David Berry Knapp, aka Swami Krishna Deva, former mayor of Rajneeshpuram, told the FBI in his testimony that “Sheela told him during a trip to India which they took in 1985, that she had injected her first husband [Marc Harris Silverman] with an injection that caused his death.” After prison, Sheela married Urs Birnstiel, a Swiss citizen, who died of AIDS shortly after their marriage.