Justice moving slowly for 7 jailed members of Zizians group linked to violent deaths
A year after a U.S. border agent was killed and three members of a group known by authorities and the public as the Zizians were arrested in western Maryland, seven people tied to the group remain behind bars awaiting trial across multiple states, according to court documents and pretrial testimony summarized by the Associated Press.
Police in Maryland connected Jack “Ziz” LaSota, Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank to homicide investigations in California, Pennsylvania and Vermont after a landowner found them living in box trucks at the end of a snow-covered dirt road in February 2025, the story said. Those arrests expanded a set of criminal cases that authorities and investigators have linked to a wider pattern of deadly incidents, including shootings tied to the group that investigators say involved multiple jurisdictions.
Maryland state Trooper Brandon Jeffries wrote after the Feb. 16, 2025 arrests that “All the suspects involved are to be questioned regarding other crimes that have occurred across the country and have ties with the Zizians Cult,” according to the AP report. But prosecutions for the jailed members have moved slowly, with trial delays and limited progress described in other cases, the report said.
The Maryland case centered on jury selection in Cumberland, where LaSota, Zajko and Blank are charged with possession of LSD and possession with intent to deliver LSD, along with multiple gun violations, trespassing and hindering a police officer, according to the AP summary. The trial was set for this week, but it was pushed to June after Zajko fired her attorney, briefly represented herself, and then hired a new lawyer, the story said.
In handwritten filings, Zajko has made what the AP report described as sprawling allegations of rights violations by informants and staff at the Allegany County Detention Center, as well as claims that police and prosecutors lied. In court, she asked the court to dismiss the case, declaring: “In the interest of Hope, Justice and Truth, for the good of all people, and for the establishment of a true peace, the defense moves to dismiss this case,” according to the story.
Legal representatives and lead prosecutors in the cases described by the AP report declined to comment or did not respond to interview requests. The report also said Zajko is accused in Vermont of supplying guns used by other Zizians in a fatal shootout in January 2025, while her federal docket in the Vermont matter, as described in the story, begins and ends with a complaint accusing her of lying to a Vermont gun dealer.
The AP report described the Vermont incident as involving Teresa Youngblut, who is accused of opening fire on Border Patrol Agent David Maland during a traffic stop, after which another agent wounded her and killed her companion, Felix Bauckholt. The encounter occurred just hours after President Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term, according to the AP report, and in a Maryland filing Zajko sought to connect the episode to what she described as impunity in the administration’s mass deportation campaign.
In that context, the AP report quoted Zajko’s claim that Renee Good was probably dead because authorities, in her view, were “able to get away with murdering Ms. Bauckholt & framing Youngblut.” The story said Good was fatally shot last month by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis, and it noted that neither ICE nor border patrol officials responded to messages seeking comment.
The AP report said Zajko argued authorities arrested the group to prevent them from exonerating Youngblut, who had pleaded not guilty in Vermont to murder and could face the death penalty if convicted. In the Youngblut case, the AP report said a judge last week suspended deadlines for pretrial motions, citing the complexity of the capital case and noting that the exchange of evidence “will include material related to investigations into other individuals in multiple jurisdictions.”
Elsewhere, the AP report said Zizians members charged in other deadly incidents also face postponed or separate proceedings. Two other group members, Suri Dao and Alexander Leatham, are charged in a 2022 attack on a California landlord that left another member, Emma Borhanian, dead, but their trial has been postponed multiple times. Another member, Maximilian Snyder, is charged with killing the landlord, Curtis Lind, three years later, days before the Vermont shooting, the report said.
Dao’s attorney, Brian Ford, told the AP that proceedings were suspended for competency hearings and that Dao is not guilty. The story said attorneys for other defendants and family members of victims and those accused declined to comment or did not respond to messages.
In Maryland, the AP report said LaSota has a May trial date in Baltimore federal court on a separate charge of being an armed fugitive, and she has asked to have that charge dismissed, arguing it violates her Second Amendment rights. Authorities described LaSota as the apparent leader of the Zizians and alleged she faked her own death to evade charges after a 2019 protest in California, then disappeared again after accusations involving the December 2022 shooting deaths of Zajko’s parents, Richard and Rita Zajko, in Chester Heights, Pennsylvania.
No charges have been filed, the AP report said, for killing the Zajkos, and the Delaware County district attorney’s office said only that it was still investigating. It also said Jeffries reported that “Blank is under investigation for a double homicide that occurred in Delaware County, PA,” according to the reporting summary, and it added that authorities previously described Zajko as a person of interest in her parents’ death while she denied any role.
The AP report included testimony about the Maryland arrests. James Broadwater, who testified recently, described encountering LaSota and Zajko near his home in Eckhart Mines, outside Frostburg, Maryland, and he said he called state police after they asked to stay. Jeffries testified that a dispatcher told him about an Associated Press article that described the six deaths tied to the group, and the AP report said Jeffries testified that LaSota told him they were willing to leave but would not identify themselves.
Broadwater’s testimony and Jeffries’ account included details that raised suspicions, the story said, including tactical gear with ammunition on gun belts and the way the trucks were parked with chains on their tires. Jeffries testified he wanted to identify the suspects before they left, according to the AP report.
The seven members jailed in Maryland, California and other states have been coordinating their defenses from custody, the AP report said. It also said Blank’s parents are pressing for his release on bail and his lawyer has sought to distance him from the others, adding that his attorney Rebecca Lechliter wrote that “Blank ‘should not be detained because of the company in which he was arrested,’” according to the AP summary.