The leader of a cultlike group that has been linked to multiple killings, including the fatal shooting of a Border Patrol officer in Vermont last month, was arrested in Maryland on charges of trespassing and other crimes, authorities said Monday.
Jack LaSota, 34, who goes by “Ziz” and has espoused the dangers of artificial intelligence, was taken into custody Sunday in Frostburg, a rural area roughly midway between Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., Maryland State Police said in a statement.
LaSota, of Berkeley, California, also faces a firearms charge and obstructing and hindering, according to the statement. Two other people — Michelle Zajko, 32, of Media, Pennsylvania, and Daniel Blank, 26, of Sacramento, California — were arrested on similar charges.
All three were being held at a local jail, state police said. It was not immediately clear whether they have lawyers to speak on their behalf.
The state police statement, which did not provide additional details about the charges, noted that the agency is working with federal law enforcement and the Allegany County state’s attorney office in an ongoing investigation.
LaSota, a computer programmer previously associated with a Berkeley-based organization that seeks to use mathematical and logical principles to improve the world, was said to have died in a boating accident in August 2022, according to a brief obituary that appeared in her hometown newspaper in Alaska.
But since then, LaSota, who identifies as a woman, and her associates have been linked to a series of violent attacks, including a 2022 stabbing that left an 80-year-old man partially blind. That victim was killed last month in a homicide that prosecutors said had was intended to keep him from testifying in the trial linked to the initial attack, which is scheduled to begin this spring.
LaSota has not been charged in connection with that killing, but authorities found her at the scene of the attack in 2022, just three months after she had supposedly died, according to an email a prosecutor sent to one of LaSota’s attorneys at the time.
In January 2023, the parents of Michelle Zajko — the woman arrested Sunday — were found dead in their Pennsylvania home. Both had been fatally shot. LaSota was charged with obstructing the investigation into their deaths and was released from jail after having posted $10,000 bail.
A bench warrant for LaSota’s arrest was issued after she failed to appear in court. Her whereabouts were unknown as recently as earlier this month.
Zajko was taken into custody in connection with the killing of her parents, but she was later released and has not been charged in their deaths.
Another follower of LaSota’s — German national Ophelia Bauckholt — was fatally shot last month in an exchange of gunfire with Border Patrol agents in Vermont. The shooting occurred during a traffic stop, when another person riding with Backhault drew a gun and fired at one of the agents, according to federal prosecutors.
Bauckholt and Border Patrol agent David Maland were fatally shot in the gunbattle. According to an FBI affidavit, Bauckholt was shot after she pulled out a firearm.
The circumstances of the shooting remain under investigation, and the person riding with Bauckholt, Teresa Youngblut, has pleaded not guilty to firearms charges.
Shortly after the shooting, federal authorities sent an alert asking firearms dealers in Vermont for their help identifying any purchases made by Michelle Zajko, whom the alert identifies as a person of interest in the fatal shooting of Maland.
