Elaine started this down below. There was this premie, Michael Clegg, who was one of the founders of COLL, in San Antonio, that ended up being the ashram novitiate program. Anyhow, so sometime prior to that, he was convicted of some crime and got sent to prison in Dallas, Texas (I think it was white collar crime), and so was gone fairly early from the premie community. (I was told when I got to COLL that Clegg was going to prison at some point and he did a few months thereafter). After that premies used to go to Dallas and give satsang at the prison, and Michael bragged that he was converting everyone to Rawat by the power of his personal magnetism and enlightened, advanced spirituality. (Never happened, but the prisoners seemed to like the ashram sisters when we went up there.)
Anyhow, he got out of prison at some point and then became a major drug dealer, got sent to prison again in Florida, and finally got out in 1996 and then became his own guru -- and calls himself Satyam Nadeen (which means something like the "big fat, holy, egonsitical con man guru who will take your money and worship" or something like that. (Gag, barf.)
Anyhow, a while back I recall he was set up in Costa Rica, conning money out of bored yuppies going down there for "enlightenment" and now he is also apparently set up in Georgia. He also wrote an infantile and self-fawning book and here's how it's described:
In March of 1992, Michael Clegg entered an overcrowded county jail near Jacksonville, Florida, convicted of the manufacture of an illegal drug called Ecstasy. He was held there for two years while awaiting sentencing. While in prison, he realized that a lifetime of spiritual searching had brought him no closer to the elusive state he was seeking, so he gave up trying. In surrender, he was overwhelmed with relief and bliss.
The next several years were spent in a deepening process he calls the deliverance, as layers of preconditioned ego personality were peeled away to reveal the eternal Pearl of Conciousness. On August 15, 1996, Satyam Nadeen was released from a federal prison to re-enter the world that Michael Clegg had left.
And, of course, he has a website, and he still looks like the same psychopath I recall, even wearing Guru-outfits and putting on that fake smile. I think the guy learned a lot about conning people from Rawat, and there you have it. Clegg had about the biggest and most offensive ego I think I ever encountered. Below is his website, but don't look at it soon after you have eaten. Be warned.
And check out the homepage of the link. Clegg gives "satsang intensives" and explains how to reach enlightenment from his vast and deep experience and a criminal and con man, and, I guess as a premie, although Rawat isn't mentioned on the website.
