The obvious chief of a weird vegan transgender cult, the Zizians, has been linked to 6 killings throughout the nation, together with the homicide of a Border Patrol agent.
Jack “Ziz” Lasota, 34, was arrested Sunday together with Michelle Zajko, 33, and Daniel Clean, 26, Maryland State Police stated Monday. They face a number of expenses, together with trespassing, obstructing and hindering, and possession of a handgun in a car.
LaSota was ordered held with out bail on Tuesday at Allegany District Courtroom in Cumberland, with prosecutors citing considerations that he was a flight threat and a hazard to public security.
Prosecutors stated LaSota “seems to be the chief of an extremist group referred to as ‘Zizians’ that has been linked to a number of killings.”
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Jack LaSota refused to talk and stored his eyes closed for his reserving picture after being detained in a lodge in suburban Pennsylvania on Jan. 23, 2023. (Delaware County, Pennsylvania, District Legal professional’s Workplace by way of AP/File)
The perimeter group was introduced into the limelight after followers had been tied to the killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland close to the Canadian border in January.
LaSota’s run-ins with regulation enforcement return to no less than 2022. Initially from Alaska, LaSota appeared to pen extremist ideologies in a since-archived weblog titled “Sinceriously.” LaSota additionally recognized as transgender and used feminine pronouns, the Related Press reported.
In a February 2019 submit titled “Punching Evil,” LaSota is believed to have written that there can be “no ethical obligation to not carry out self-defense” if “the state has been seized by vampires.”
In a Nov. 19 submit titled “Good Group and Pasek’s Doom,” LaSota wrote that every hemisphere can have separate values and even genders and that they “typically want to kill one another.”
“Reaching peace between hemispheres with conflicting pursuits is a difficult strategy of repeatedly reconstructing frames of recreation principle and resolution principle in gentle of realizations of them having been strategically broken by your headmate,” LaSota wrote.
LaSota additionally described being allegedly focused by police for sporting Sith-inspired garb. All through the weblog, LaSota commonly mentions enchantment with the Star Wars franchise.
“Typically cops harass me for sporting my non secular apparel as a Sith,” LaSota wrote. “(As a Sith, I’m religiously required to do no matter I would like, and for now that so occurs to incorporate sporting black robes).”
In September 2022, a quick obituary was printed in LaSota’s hometown paper, the Each day Information-Miner, in Fairbanks, Alaska. (Legacy.com)
Staged demise
In September 2022, a quick obituary was printed in LaSota’s hometown paper, the Each day Information-Miner, in Fairbanks, Alaska. The obituary stated LaSota was killed in a “boating accident” on Aug. 19, 2022.
“Loving journey, family and friends, music, blueberries, biking, laptop video games and animals, you’re missed,” the obituary reads.
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Nonetheless, LaSota’s demise was short-lived when the Sonoma County District Legal professional’s Workplace knowledgeable LaSota’s legal professional that LaSota had been discovered “alive and effectively” at a criminal offense scene on Nov. 13, 2022, in response to the San Francisco Chronicle.
It was not instantly clear why LaSota faked his demise, main even his mother and father to imagine he was lifeless. The thriller deepened after his title was related to a legal investigation in California in 2022.
Felony investigation in Vallejo, California
LaSota’s demise was contradicted after his title popped up in a squatting incident in Vallejo, California.
The incident unraveled when LaSota and different associates moved to a property in Vallejo belonging to an older California man, then-80-year-old Curt Lind.
“They had been sad with dwelling on the tug,” Lind informed a documentary filmmaker, in response to the San Francisco Chronicle. “They determined that they needed to maneuver to my yard and purchase transferring vans, small transferring vans, and alter them into locations the place they may dwell within the transferring van and no one would know that they’re in there.”
In the course of the November 2022 incident, Curt Lind was attacked with a samurai sword by members of the Zizian cult. (GoFundMe)
In the course of the November 2022 incident, Lind was attacked with a samurai sword when the squatting dispute reached a boiling level.
“He had a samurai sword caught to his again with a couple of foot of it protruding in entrance, his face lower up throughout,” Lind’s good friend, Patrick McMillan, informed FOX 2 San Francisco on the time of the incident.
“The reality is, they jumped him,” his son, Carl Lind, informed the outlet.
Lind, regardless of the stabbing, nonetheless managed to shoot two of his alleged attackers, killing considered one of them, Emma Borhanian. Prosecutors concluded that the owner acted in self-defense.
In keeping with police studies, LaSota was handcuffed at gunpoint on the scene however was not charged.
Lind’s surviving the preliminary assault was short-lived, when, on Jan. 17, 2025, he was stabbed to demise.
Maximilian Snyder, 22, one other “Ziz” member, was arrested and charged together with his homicide, in response to courtroom information obtained by FOX 13 Seattle.
The outlet additionally reported that Snyder had utilized for a wedding license with Teresa Youngblut, who’s tied to the 2025 border agent killing.
Earlier mugshot of Michelle Zajko (FBI)
Michelle Zajko, 32, was additionally charged with resisting arrest and carrying a handgun. (Allegany County Sheriff’s Workplace)
Chester Heights, Pennsylvania, arrest
Richard and Rita Zajko had been discovered lifeless from murder from gunshot wounds of their Chester Heights, Pennsylvania, house on New 12 months’s Eve.
Police launched an investigation into the homicide and started taking a look at their daughter, Jamie Zajko, one other follower of LaSota.
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Daniel Clean was allegedly concerned in Richard and Rita Zajko’s 2023 homicide. Clean and LaSota had been charged with “obstructing administration of regulation” and “disorderly conduct.” (Allegany County Sheriff’s Workplace)
LaSota was introduced into the battle throughout a police investigation into the Zajko murders.
Daniel Clean, additionally a “Zizian,” and LaSota had been discovered at a Pennsylvania lodge on Jan. 13, 2023. They had been each arrested for “obstructing administration of regulation” and “disorderly conduct.”
LaSota was freed on bail in June 2023 and reportedly quickly stopped exhibiting up for courtroom dates. LaSota was thought-about at giant with an arrest warrant in Pennsylvania, the place the case continues to be pending.
Vermont investigation
The Maryland State Police confirmed to Fox Information Digital that LaSota, Zajko and one other particular person had been arrested Sunday afternoon on plenty of expenses unrelated to the homicide of Maland in Vermont, close to the border with Canada.
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Police stated that shortly after 2:30 p.m. on Feb. 16, LaSota was arrested and charged with trespassing, obstructing and hindering, and having a firearm in a car in Frostburg, Maryland. Zajko was arrested on the identical expenses in addition to resisting arrest and having a handgun.
Zajko allegedly purchased .40-caliber and .380-caliber handguns in February 2024 in Mount Tabor, Vermont, that had been utilized in Maland’s taking pictures, the Albany Instances Union beforehand reported, citing courtroom paperwork.
David Maland, a Minnesota native and Air Drive veteran, labored as a Border Patrol agent on the U.S. Customs and Border Safety’s Newport Station. He spent 9 years within the army and 15 working for the federal authorities. (U.S. Border Patrol)
Maland, a Minnesota native and Air Drive veteran, labored as a Border Patrol agent on the U.S. Customs and Border Safety’s Newport Station. He spent 9 years within the army and 15 working for the federal authorities.
It’s unclear what introduced members of the group to Vermont.
German nationwide Felix “Ophelia” Bauckholt and Youngblut exchanged gunfire with Maland close to the Canada-Vermont border on Jan. 20 throughout a site visitors cease. Bauckholt and Maland had been killed. Youngblut was injured and faces legal expenses.
Teresa Youngblut, who’s charged by the FBI in connection to the taking pictures demise of Border Patrol Agent David Maland, is seen on the Newport Metropolis Inn on Jan. 14, 2025, in Newport, Vt. (Newport Metropolis Inn {photograph} by way of AP)
What the Zizians imagine
The “Zizians” had been created by LaSota, who goes by the nickname “Ziz.”
The group reveals cult habits, in response to Dar Dixon, an actor and the podcast host of “The Artwork of Being Dar,” who shared his cult experience with Fox Information Digital.
“The factor that I observed about this ‘Zizian’ cult is that it hits all the main factors that may set anyone as much as be concerned in it. You’ve got obtained transgender human beings, all proper? You are coping with sexuality. You are coping with sexual identification, and also you’re coping with intercourse. Anytime you do all these issues, you have already obtained somebody, as they are saying, by the tight and curlies,” he stated.
“The second factor is that they had been on a restrictive food plan. On this case, they had been vegan,” he stated. “So if you begin to combine within the sexual facet, then with a restrictive food plan, now what you are doing is habits management.”
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Referencing cult professional Steven Hassan’s BITE Mannequin of Authoritarian Management, Dixon mentioned how cults emotionally management their members.
“I am certain there was plenty of sleep deprivation occurring additionally, which impacts your ideas, which impacts your feelings, which additionally impacts your habits and your potential to soak up and course of info,” he stated.
“That is a part of the emotional management. You are by no means allowed to really feel your emotions or to debate your emotions. Should you do not step according to the social gathering line, you are instantly reprimanded, typically severely, both verbally or bodily, otherwise you’re shunned.”
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“So the fruits of sexual identification, meals restriction, sleep restriction and emotional restriction, effectively, now I’ve obtained you,” he stated. “I personal you. And I can take you any course I need to take you now.”
Fox Information Digital’s Stepheny Value contributed to this report.
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