ANDY NGO REPORTS: Zizian trans cult leader seeks jail release despite links to killings and history of faking death and being a fugitive

In an Oct. 21 motion filed in Maryland federal court, defense attorney Teresa Whalen argued that LaSota’s continued detention violates his constitutional rights.

LaSota is federally charged with being a fugitive in possession of firearms and ammunition.

Whalen proposed that LaSota be released into the custody of fellow cult member Daniel “Hastur” Blank, who was arrested alongside LaSota and Michelle “Jamie” “Alex” Zajko in rural western Maryland during a nationwide manhunt last year.

Since then, the Maryland state felony cases involving firearms offenses have stalled. Blank was released from state custody in February without having to post bail, and the cases were all abruptly suspended in August for unknown reasons.

In the federal motion, Whalen described Blank as a “friend” of LaSota’s with no prior criminal record who would be a suitable third-party custodian. The filing does not mention the pair’s shared history in the cult, including years spent evading authorities while they were persons of interest in multiple murder investigations.

LaSota’s lawyer also proposed releasing him under electronic monitoring without a third-party custodian at all.

LaSota, a biological male who identifies as a woman named “Ziz,” founded a radical trans vegan cult whose members embrace an esoteric ideology combining transgenderism, anarchism, effective altruism, rationalism and leftist politics.

The group has been linked to a series of violent and deadly attacks, including 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 a separate Zizian murder and attempted murder prosecution when he was killed before trial.

Fellow Zizian Michelle Zajko was charged in June in Delaware County, Pa., with the 2022 double murder of her parents. She is awaiting extradition from Maryland to Pennsylvania.

According to jail records, she has recently adopted a new name: “Truth.”

Pennsylvania prosecutors say evidence indicates Zajko did not act alone in the killings.

LaSota has not been charged in connection with any of the killings.

The request for pretrial release comes despite LaSota’s history of evading law enforcement in multiple states.

He first became a fugitive in connection with a 2019 California felony case stemming from a confrontation involving Zizian members at a Sonoma County rationalist retreat. The Zizians were accused of creating a hostage crisis that endangered children and families at the camp. In 2022, LaSota staged his own death by faking a drowning in San Francisco Bay, triggering a massive search-and-rescue operation.

In a previous civil rights lawsuit filed by LaSota and his Zizian co-defendants in Sonoma County, Calif., they alleged that their constitutional rights had been violated by transphobic court officials, sheriff’s deputies and others. The lawsuit was later dismissed after LaSota and fellow Zizian Jasper “Gwen” Danielson faked their deaths and disappeared.

In January 2023, LaSota was arrested in Pennsylvania in connection with the investigation into the murders of Zajko’s parents. He pretended to be unconscious to resist officers and subsequently failed to appear for his resisting-arrest trial after being released. LaSota remained a fugitive until his February 2025 arrest in Maryland.

Whalen characterized the 2023 incident as evidence of LaSota’s “lack of violent conduct,” writing that he lay completely still “as if she were sleeping.”

Whalen also argued that LaSota has already spent approximately 20 months in pretrial detention, nearly as long as the upper end of the prison sentence she estimates he would receive if convicted of the federal felony charge of being a fugitive illegally in possession of firearms and ammunition.

She also claimed LaSota has been attacked twice while housed in a male federal detention facility in Philadelphia.

“She [LaSota] has incurred harassment from guards and other inmates; has been the victim of numerous thefts; and has endured periods of time when the facilities fail to provide vegan food – a necessity not only for her health, but for her religious tenants,” Whalen wrote.

Whalen argued that LaSota’s continued detention amounts to unconstitutional punishment before conviction.

LaSota’s lawyer was fired from her position as a senior Montgomery County, Md., prosecutor in 1997 following allegations that she attempted to obstruct a police investigation into her then-boyfriend, who had circulated an embarrassing recording of her discussing a possible affair with her boss, the county’s state’s attorney. Whalen denied interfering with the investigation.

The federal court has scheduled LaSota’s jury trial to begin March 8, 2027, more than two years after his arrest.

The court has not yet ruled on LaSota’s latest request for release.