After 18 months of prosecution, Maryland abruptly put its cases against three Zizian trans cult members on indefinite hold. Officials have not publicly explained why.
CUMBERLAND, Md. — Maryland state felony prosecutions against three members of the Zizian trans death cult have been indefinitely suspended for unknown reasons.
The cases against cult leader Jack "Ziz" LaSota and subordinates Michelle "Jamie" "Alex" Zajko and Daniel "Hastur" Blank were made inactive on Aug. 14; All scheduled future trial dates were canceled.
LaSota, Zajko and Blank were arrested together following a national manhunt on Feb. 16, 2025 in rural western Maryland. They were found with a cache of weapons in their two box trucks. They had spent years moving around the country as members of the Zizians, a radical transgender cult who has been linked to at least eight violent deaths.
The three initially faced only misdemeanor trespassing, firearms and obstruction charges after an elderly Frostburg-area property owner reported that they had arrived in box trucks and asked to camp on his property.
Authorities later added charges involving the alleged illegal possession and carrying of concealed and loaded firearms.
LaSota, a biological male who identifies as a woman and uses the name "Ziz," is the founder and ideological leader of the Zizians. The group is made up of transgender vegan extremists, several of whom have elite educational backgrounds in science and mathematics. Members embraced an esoteric ideology combining leftist transgender politics, anarchism, rationalism and veganism.
Jack 'Ziz LaSota pretended to be unconscious when he was arrested in 2023 in Pennsylvania.
The reason prosecutors chose to suspend the Maryland cases has not been publicly explained. The office of the State's Attorney for Allegany County has been reached for comment.
The decision comes as LaSota and Zajko face separate and more serious prosecutions.
LaSota and Zajko have been held in custody in Allegany County for approximately 18 months, while Blank was released in February on a $15,000 unsecured bond with electronic monitoring and other conditions. An unsecured bond means the suspect does not have to put down any money to be released.
Though the state charges have been suspended, LaSota is being held on a federal detainer request on a federal indictment of being a fugitive from justice in possession of firearms and ammunition. On Tuesday, he was transferred into federal custody at the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia.
Zajko, meanwhile, is awaiting extradition to Pennsylvania. She was charged in June with murdering her adoptive parents, Richard and Rita Zajko, on New Year's Eve 2022. The case had gone cold for years before the surprise announcement by prosecutors in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
Authorities allege Zajko traveled from Vermont to her childhood home in Chester Heights on the night of her 30th birthday and participated in the execution-style killings.
A federal memo about Michelle Zajko when she was on the run.
Zajko initially told investigators she was in Vermont with Blank during the time of the killings. Investigators later found cellphone activity associated with Zajko, Blank and LaSota were quiet during the period surrounding the murders.
Days after Zajko was first interviewed in January 2023, Blank withdrew $40,000 from a New Hampshire bank. Police later recovered the cash from Zajko's Subaru after the group was detained for questioning near Philadelphia. They were released without charges at the time and they promptly disappeared for years until their arrest in 2025.
Daniel 'Hastur' Blank was allowed to bail out of jail
Zajko has denied murdering her parents in an open letter released to the public while in custody. She has not yet been arraigned on the double murder charges.
"At this time, we do not know who her co-conspirators were," Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse said at the press conference in June. "She did not act alone."
The suspension of the Maryland cases follows a pattern of delay that characterizes the Zizians' many criminal cases across the U.S.
Members of the group were allegedly involved in the January 2025 fatal shooting of U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland in Vermont and the killing of 82-year-old Curtis Lind in California. Lind was a key witness in another Zizian murder prosecution when he was assassinated shortly before trial.
Despite years of homicide investigations and prosecutions involving members of the group across several states, no Zizian has yet gone to trial. Earlier this month, the murder and attempted murder trial of three Zizians in California were delayed again, this time to 2027.
Andy Ngo is the author of the forthcoming investigative true-crime book, The Zizians: Inside a Trans Death Cult.
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