Zizian leader Jack LaSota: Who is transgender, vegan cult head linked to border agent killing?
The apparent leader of a bizarre vegan transgender cult, the Zizians, has been linked to six killings across the country, including the murder of a Border Patrol agent.
Jack "Ziz" Lasota, 34, was arrested Sunday along with Michelle Zajko, 33, and Daniel Blank, 26, Maryland State Police said Monday. They face multiple charges, including trespassing, obstructing and hindering, and possession of a handgun in a vehicle.
LaSota was ordered held without bail on Tuesday at Allegany District Court in Cumberland, with prosecutors citing concerns that he was a flight risk and a danger to public safety.
Prosecutors said LaSota "appears to be the leader of an extremist group known as 'Zizians' that has been linked to multiple killings."
The fringe group was brought into the limelight after followers were tied to the killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland near the Canadian border in January.
LaSota's run-ins with law enforcement go back to at least 2022. Originally from Alaska, LaSota appeared to pen extremist ideologies in a since-archived blog titled "Sinceriously." LaSota also identified as transgender and used female pronouns, the Associated Press reported.
In a February 2019 post titled "Punching Evil," LaSota is believed to have written that there would be "no moral obligation not to perform self-defense" if "the state has been seized by vampires."
In a Nov. 19 post titled "Good Group and Pasek's Doom," LaSota wrote that each hemisphere can have separate values and even genders and that they "often desire to kill each other."
"Reaching peace between hemispheres with conflicting interests is a tricky process of repeatedly reconstructing frames of game theory and decision theory in light of realizations of them having been strategically damaged by your headmate," LaSota wrote.
LaSota also described being allegedly targeted by police for wearing Sith-inspired garb. Throughout the blog, LaSota regularly mentions enchantment with the Star Wars franchise.
"Sometimes cops harass me for wearing my religious attire as a Sith," LaSota wrote. "(As a Sith, I'm religiously required to do whatever I want, and for now that so happens to include wearing black robes)."
In September 2022, a brief obituary was published in LaSota's hometown paper, the Daily News-Miner, in Fairbanks, Alaska. The obituary said LaSota was killed in a "boating accident" on Aug. 19, 2022.
"Loving adventure, friends and family, music, blueberries, biking, computer games and animals, you are missed," the obituary reads.
However, LaSota's death was short-lived when the Sonoma County District Attorney's Office informed LaSota's attorney that LaSota had been found "alive and well" at a crime scene on Nov. 13, 2022, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
It was not immediately clear why LaSota faked his death, leading even his parents to believe he was dead. The mystery deepened after his name was connected to a criminal investigation in California in 2022.
LaSota's death was contradicted after his name popped up in a squatting incident in Vallejo, California.
The incident unraveled when LaSota and other associates moved to a property in Vallejo belonging to an older California man, then-80-year-old Curt Lind.
"They were unhappy with living on the tug," Lind told a documentary filmmaker, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. "They decided that they wanted to move to my yard and buy moving vans, small moving vans, and change them into places where they could live in the moving van and nobody would know that they're in there."
During the November 2022 incident, Lind was attacked with a samurai sword when the squatting dispute reached a boiling point.
"He had a samurai sword stuck to his back with about a foot of it sticking out in front, his face cut up all over," Lind's friend, Patrick McMillan, told FOX 2 San Francisco at the time of the incident.
"The truth is, they jumped him," his son, Carl Lind, told the outlet.
Lind, despite the stabbing, still managed to shoot two of his alleged attackers, killing one of them, Emma Borhanian. Prosecutors concluded that the landlord acted in self-defense.
According to police reports, LaSota was handcuffed at gunpoint at the scene but was not charged.
Lind's surviving the initial attack was short-lived, when, on Jan. 17, 2025, he was stabbed to death.
Maximilian Snyder, 22, another "Ziz" member, was arrested and charged with his murder, according to court records obtained by FOX 13 Seattle.
The outlet also reported that Snyder had applied for a marriage license with Teresa Youngblut, who is tied to the 2025 border agent killing.
Richard and Rita Zajko were found dead from homicide from gunshot wounds in their Chester Heights, Pennsylvania, home on New Year's Eve.
Police launched an investigation into the murder and began looking at their daughter, Jamie Zajko, another follower of LaSota.
LaSota was brought into the conflict during a police investigation into the Zajko murders.
Daniel Blank, also a "Zizian," and LaSota were found at a Pennsylvania hotel on Jan. 13, 2023. They were both arrested for "obstructing administration of law" and "disorderly conduct."
LaSota was freed on bail in June 2023 and reportedly soon stopped showing up for court dates. LaSota was considered at large with an arrest warrant in Pennsylvania, where the case is still pending.
The Maryland State Police confirmed to Fox News Digital that LaSota, Zajko and another person were arrested Sunday afternoon on a number of charges unrelated to the murder of Maland in Vermont, near the border with Canada.
Police said 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 vehicle in Frostburg, Maryland. Zajko was arrested on the same charges as well as resisting arrest and having a handgun.
Zajko allegedly bought .40-caliber and .380-caliber handguns in February 2024 in Mount Tabor, Vermont, that were used in Maland's shooting, the Albany Times Union previously reported, citing court documents.
Maland, a Minnesota native and Air Force veteran, worked as a Border Patrol agent at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Newport Station. He spent nine years in the military and 15 working for the federal government.
It is unclear what brought members of the group to Vermont.
German national Felix "Ophelia" Bauckholt and Youngblut exchanged gunfire with Maland near the Canada-Vermont border on Jan. 20 during a traffic stop. Bauckholt and Maland were killed. Youngblut was injured and faces criminal charges.
The "Zizians" were created by LaSota, who goes by the nickname "Ziz."
The group exhibits cult behavior, according to Dar Dixon, an actor and the podcast host of "The Art of Being Dar," who shared his cult expertise with Fox News Digital.
"The thing that I noticed about this 'Zizian' cult is that it hits all the major points that will set somebody up to be involved in it. You've got transgender human beings, all right? You're dealing with sexuality. You're dealing with sexual identity, and you're dealing with sex. Anytime you do all those things, you've already got someone, as they say, by the tight and curlies," he said.
"The second thing is they were on a restrictive diet. In this case, they were vegan," he said. "So when you start to mix in the sexual aspect, then with a restrictive diet, now what you're doing is behavior control."
WATCH: Cult expert says 'Zizian' fringe group tied to killing of US border agent uses behavior control
Referencing cult expert Steven Hassan's BITE Model of Authoritarian Control, Dixon discussed how cults emotionally control their members.
"I'm sure there was a lot of sleep deprivation going on also, which affects your thoughts, which affects your emotions, which also affects your behavior and your ability to take in and process information," he said.
"This is part of the emotional control. You're never allowed to feel your feelings or to discuss your feelings. If you don't step in line with the party line, you're immediately reprimanded, sometimes severely, either verbally or physically, or you're shunned."
"So the culmination of sexual identity, food restriction, sleep restriction and emotional restriction, well, now I've got you," he said. "I own you. And I can take you any direction I want to take you now."
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