wild wild country who was the lawyer

by Prof. Bernhard Ortiz IV Published 2 years ago Updated 1 year ago 9 min read

Philip Toelkes

What is Wild Wild Country about?

13 rows · Wild Wild Country is a Netflix documentary series about the controversial Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho), his one-time personal assistant Ma Anand Sheela, and their community of followers in the Rajneeshpuram community located in Wasco County, Oregon, US. It was released on Netflix on March 16, 2018, after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival.

Who are the actors in Wild Wild Country?

Mar 27, 2018 · Wild Wild Country, the compelling Netflix docuseries produced by Jay and Mark Duplass and directed by Chapman and Maclain Way, unpacks the Byzantine saga of an Indian commune that moved into a ...

What awards did Wild Wild Country win in 2018?

Oct 31, 2018 · On Monday, Hudson posted a photo of her crew donning the signature red and pink outfits of the Oregon cult, which was featured in the hit …

How many episodes of Wild Wild Country are there?

Apr 04, 2018 · Swami Prem Niren (a.k.a. Philip J. Toelkes ), now 73 years old, was the guru’s lawyer until 1983. A falling out with Sheela left the former …

Where is Krishna Deva now?

Swami Krishna Deva: Mayor of Rajneeshpuram, he pleaded guilty and went into the Federal Witness Program. He served two years in federal prison and now lives in California under his given name of David Knapp, handling real estate investments and a small international charity founded with another ex-Rajneeshee.

Is Rajneesh movement still alive?

Rajneesh died of heart failure in 1990 at age 59, at his ashram in India. His final words were: “remember that you are all Buddhas”. Since then, the media's interest has certainly declined, but the movement itself is still active.Jul 28, 2020

Did Osho get married?

He never married and consistently said it was just a form of self-sabotage wherein you tie yourself down by getting “legally attached” in a way that lowers your spiritual potential. The biggest motivation behind the things Osho said about marriage and children was his belief in personal liberty above all else.Sep 12, 2021

Where is Ma Prem hasya now?

Death. She had Parkinson's disease for the seven years preceding her death on August 19, 2014, at the home of her daughter, Erika Glazer. She is buried under the name of Francoise “Hasya” Ruddy in Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery in Los Angeles.

Where is Ma Anand Sheela today?

Switzerland

Her story has been detailed in the immensely successful Netflix documentary series Wild Wild Country. Sheela now lives in Switzerland, where she runs two care homes for seniors and people with degenerative illnesses.Apr 20, 2021

Where is Ma Sheela now?

Switzerland

These days, the now 71-year-old Sheela goes by Sheela Birnstiel, having taken the name of her late husband, Urs Birnstiel. She lives in Switzerland, where she has resided since the late 1980s.Apr 28, 2021

Why did Vinod leave Osho?

That came much later," Akshaye told Mid-Day and added, "It's a life-changing decision, which he (Vinod Khanna) felt that he needed to take at the time. Something must have moved him so deeply inside, that he felt that that kind of decision was worth it for him. Especially, when you have everything in life.Oct 6, 2021

Was Osho a gold medalist?

Despite antagonising his professors, in 1957 Osho gains a first-class MA in logic, philosophy and literature. He is also the All-India Debating Champion and Gold Medal winner in his graduating class.

Who is Osho biography?

Osho was born as Chandra Mohan Jain on 11 December 1931 in Kuchwada village of Madhya Pradesh. Subsequently, after enlightenment, he was known by many other names like Acharya Rajneesh, Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh, Osho, and sometimes as “sex guru”.

Who was Rajneesh's lawyer?

Philip John Toelkes

Philip John Toelkes, also known as Swami Prem Niren and Philip Niren Toelkes, is an American lawyer and follower of Rajneesh who served as the second mayor of Rajneeshpuram from 1985 until the commune's disbandment in 1986. He served as the personal Lawyer of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

How many children does Osho have?

He is married. His wife is from “a really good Irish Catholic background, and I love that”. They have three children, aged 17, 16 and nine.Apr 24, 2018

What happened to Jane Stork?

Stork served time in jail but later lived in exile in Germany for 16 years, after a German court had denied extradition to the United States. She returned to the U.S. to face criminal charges after learning of her son's terminal cancer condition.

Who is the director of Wild Wild Country?

By Kenny Herzog. Photo: Netflix. Wild Wild Country, the compelling Netflix docuseries produced by Jay and Mark Duplass and directed by Chapman and Maclain Way, unpacks the Byzantine saga of an Indian commune that moved into a rural Oregon town and got caught in all manner of criminal activity. After you spend six-plus hours watching ...

Who is the attorney who defended Tonya Harding?

Though somehow, things only got more provocative from there. In 1994, Weaver defended none other than Tonya Harding. Weaver now helps companies and persons in deep water with the government for white-collar crimes for a Portland-based firm, but was also notably recognized by the ACLU for pro bono services to Guantanamo detainees. However, his successful work on behalf of scandalized ex-Portland mayor Sam Adams is believed to have cost him a judgeship.

Where is Sheela Birnstiel now?

Now living as Sheela Birnstiel (she remarried in 1984, but was widowed nine years later) in a small Swiss village not far from Zurich, the fiery former secretary for Rajneesh commune founder Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (later Osho) made quite the pivot. As revealed at Wild Wild Country ’s end, she now runs a caretaking and nursing facility for older individuals dealing with a range of aging-related disorders, a kind of small-scale analog to the sprawling rural ashram she helped erect by Bhagwan’s side. Sheela has also engaged in Dadaist theater and written a memoir of her time with Bhagwan, which is perhaps why she was so worn out from rehashing details by the time the Ways were done filming her.

How long was David Knapp in jail?

The once-hubristic mayor of Rajneeshpuram fell hard from grace after flipping on Bhagwan and the commune to cut a deal with law enforcement. And though Wild Wild Country implies that he was swept off into witness protection, Knapp actually served two years in federal prison for his role in the group’s sophisticated immigration fraud. It’s no easy task to track his current residence, but curiously, there was a David Knapp who founded an El Segundo, California-based mortgage-brokerage firm in 1985 (right around the time he was working with the U.S. Attorneys office toward immunity) called Trust Capital. And public records show that there is a 69-year-old David Berry Knapp who lives in El Segundo today and was born in 1948. And per FBI records (which also divulge all those beans Knapp spilled on his fellow commune members), Knapp graduated from high school in 1967, which about adds up. Then again, Knapp would have been lucky to survive at all, given that there was allegedly at least one plot to kill him while he was incarcerated.

Who brought down Bhagwan?

The man who brought down Bhagwan (and Sheela and others), and who was allegedly targeted for assassination by those within Rajneeshpuram, nearly survived to see Wild Wild Country come to life. Turner passed away relatively peacefully this January at the age of 82. He retired from the U.S. Attorney’s Office not long after successfully prosecuting the aforementioned, and lived in the greater Seattle area from 1993 until his death.

Who is Jon Bowerman?

Jon Bowerman. Photo: Netflix. The proud rancher and son of Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman says in Wild Wild Country that he tends to relish a fight. And in recent years leading up to filming interviews for the documentary, he was nothing if not tested.

Who was Ma Prem?

According to one account of the Rajneesh rise and fall and resurrection, Ma Prem — the ex-spouse of Godfather producer Albert S. Ruddy who eventually supplanted Sheela as Bhagwan’s secretary and fled with him to India following his 1985 conviction — was still functioning in a secretarial capacity for Osho Commune International via Sedona, Arizona, as of 2010. (This, despite testifying years earlier that her former commune mates Sheela and Jane attempted to murder her husband and Bhagwan’s doctor, Swami Devaraj.) Although, another telling has it that she parted ways with the larger Osho sect following Bhagwan’s death. (And that version is corroborated here .) There is consensus, however, that she passed away herself in August 2014.

Who was the first person to contact then Attorney General Dave Frohnmayer?

Finally, we get to a few story lines that go unresolved in Wild Wild Country, starting with former Antelope mayor John Silvertooth —who says in the series that he was the first to contact then-Attorney General Dave Frohnmayer with unshredded Rajneeshee documents he had found at the city dump. But Jon Bowerman, Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman’s son, thinks it was his family’s connections to the now-deceased Oregon official that brought the Rajneeshees to his attention.

Did Sheela act alone?

While Sheela may have set much of the Rajneeshee criminal activity in motion, she certainly didn’t act alone. But the directors say some sannyasins featured in the series were more complicit than others. Swami Prem Niren (a.k.a. Philip J. Toelkes ), now 73 years old, was the guru’s lawyer until 1983.

Who plays Claire Underwood in House of Cards?

She may have started out as Frank Underwood’s cool, if slightly icy, wife who stands on the sidelines, but Claire Underwood (played by Robin Wright) quickly transforms into the show’s stealthy Lady Macbeth with a chic pixie cut, delivering quiet, but shocking blows to her enemies.

Who is the leader of the cult in India?

Cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his followers in India. When Ma Anand Sheela first met the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in his apartment in Mumbai in 1968, she hugged him and cried. “My whole head melted,” Sheela says in the Netflix docuseries Wild Wild Country, which discusses Rajneesh and his cult. “My life was complete.

What does a cult leader want?

The cult leader wants to control people, to a certain degree. When you look at people who run these organizations, if you look at the more historically famous ones, they had a need to control people, and when that control got pushed up against, they pushed back.

Where did Rajneesh live?

In 1981, with the help of Sheela, who became his personal assistant, Rajneesh bought a ranch nearby the tiny town of Antelope, Oregon, and moved his cult there, creating a whole new city named Rajneeshpuram.

What is Wild Wild Country?

Wild Wild Country, a six-part documentary series released last month on Netflix, traces the strange story from past to present, featuring interviews with several former Rajneesh devotees. The show has put a spotlight on a case that made national headlines throughout the ’80s before fading somewhat from collective memory.

When did Sheela leave the Ranch?

Sheela, long the group’s public face during Rajneesh’s years of silence, abruptly left the ranch in 1985 and later pleaded guilty in connection with the large-scale poisoning, among other charges, for which she served about two years in prison.

Where was Rajneesh born?

Rajneesh — born in India around 1932 — came to America in 1981 already the leader of an eponymous religious group that he had founded in 1974, in Poona, India.

Early life and education

Toelkes was born in Tigard, Oregon and raised Catholic. He earned an undergraduate degree from the University of San Francisco and a Juris Doctor from the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Career

Toelkes began his career as an attorney in Los Angeles, working with the Manatt Law Firm which was, at the time, the fastest growing law firm in the U.S. After traveling to Pune and meeting with Rajneesh, he quit his job and relocated to the newly-established Rajneeshpuram commune in Wasco County, Oregon.