![\"Zizians](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.animals24-7.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Picsart_25-02-17_19-05-34-499-e1739847966541.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n BERKLEY, Maryland\u2013\u2013<\/strong>Jack Amadeus \u201cZiz\u201d LaSota,\u00a0 34,\u00a0 also known as Andrea Phelps,\u00a0 Michelle Jacqueline \u201cJamie\u201d Zajko, \u00a032,\u00a0 and Daniel Arthur Blank,\u00a0 26,\u00a0 \u201cpersons of interest\u201d in connection with six murders linked to a transexual vegan cult originating in Berkeley,\u00a0 California,\u00a0 were apprehended on February 16,\u00a0 2025 in Alleghany County,\u00a0 Maryland.<\/p>\n LaSota,\u00a0 identified at booking as a resident of Berkley,\u00a0 Maryland,\u00a0 180 miles east of the arrest site,\u00a0 was charged with misdemeanor possession of a handgun in a vehicle,\u00a0 trespassing,\u00a0 and obstructing and hindering law enforcement.<\/p>\n Zajko and Blank,\u00a0 who was declared a missing person in 2022 in Media,\u00a0 Pennsylvania,\u00a0 are apparently facing similar charges.<\/p>\n None of the three,\u00a0 as yet,\u00a0 are charged with murder,\u00a0 but members of the cult,\u00a0 called \u201cZizians\u201d by some former associates, \u00a0are implicated in two killings each in California,\u00a0 Pennsylvania,\u00a0 and Vermont.<\/p>\n <\/a> Clockwise from left: Jack LaSota, Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/em>(Allegany County Sheriff\u2019s Office photos)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n LaSota,\u00a0 Zajko,\u00a0 and Blank \u201cwere arrested in white box trucks on private property, \u00a0according to charging documents,\u201d\u00a0 reported Peter D\u2019Auria and Alan J. Keays of Vermont Digger.<\/em><\/p>\n The trucks match the description of trucks the \u201cZizians\u201d earlier used as residences in Vallejo,\u00a0 California.<\/p>\n \u201cAccording to charging documents obtained by Vermont Digger<\/em>,\u201d\u00a0 D\u2019Auria and Keays wrote,\u00a0 \u201ca Frostburg resident contacted Maryland state police around 3:30 p.m. Sunday,\u201d\u00a0 February 16,\u00a0 2025, \u201cto report two white box trucks with chains on their tires trespassing on his property.<\/p>\n \u201cThe three people inside the trucks had asked if they could camp at the site for a month, \u00a0according to the charging documents, \u00a0but the landowner told police the people \u2018appeared suspicious\u2019 and he wanted them off his property.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> Michelle \u201cJamie\u201d Zajko.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/em>(Solano County<\/strong><\/em> The Maryland State Police promptly responded,\u00a0 with personnel from Allegany County Sheriff\u2019s Office and Maryland Department of Natural Resources joining as backup.<\/p>\n Maryland state trooper Brandon Jeffries reportedly found Blank in the front seat of one of the box trucks while the other members of law enforcement \u201cfound Zajko and LaSota, \u00a0according to the charging documents, \u00a0dressed all in black and wearing gun belts with ammunition,\u201d\u00a0 D\u2019Auria and Keays recounted.<\/p>\n \u201cAccording to Jeffries\u2019 account,\u201d\u00a0 D\u2019Auria and Keays continued, \u00a0\u201cstate police found a Sig Sauer handgun in Zajko\u2019s front waistband, \u00a0the charging documents said.<\/p>\n \u201cJeffries wrote that he had also seen a long rifle in the back of the vehicle and a handgun on the front floorboard where LaSota was sitting.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> Daniel LaSota,\u00a0 father of Jack \u201cZiz\u201d LaSota.\u00a0 (University of Alaska Fairbanks photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n \u201cSunday\u2019s arrest was not the first time Zajko, LaSota and Blank have all been detained together by law enforcement,\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0D\u2019Auria and Keays mentioned.\u00a0 \u201cIn January 2023, Pennsylvania State Police arrested the trio at a Chester, Pennsylvania, \u00a0hotel, \u00a0as part of a state police investigation into the homicide of Rita and Richard Zajko,\u201d\u00a0 ages 69 and 71,\u00a0 respectively,\u00a0 parents of Michelle Jacqueline \u201cJamie\u201d Zajko.<\/p>\n Charged with disorderly conduct and obstruction,\u00a0 LaSota posted the $10,000 bail and vanished for more than two years.<\/p>\n The son of University of Alaska at Fairbanks faculty member Dan Lasota,\u00a0 described on university staff pages as \u201cour go-to person for all things related to research on artificial intelligence in education,\u201d\u00a0 Jack LaSota \u201c left Fairbanks to become a graduate student studying computer hardware engineering in San Francisco, \u00a0before dropping out of college to pursue game development,\u201d\u00a0 summarized Suzanne Downing for MustReadAlaska.com.<\/p>\n Warning of the perceived dangers of artificial intelligence became an obsession of Jack LaSota.<\/p>\n <\/a> Gwen Danielson.\u00a0 (Sonoma County Sheriff\u2019s Office photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> Michael Barba, Matthias Gafni, \u00a0and Megan Cassidy on February 6,\u00a0 2025 traced the beginnings of the \u201cZizian\u201d cult to the meeting of LaSota and fellow transsexual Gwen Danielson,\u00a0 then 23,\u00a0 at a \u201crationalist\u201d event in October 2016.<\/p>\n LaSota and Danielson lived for a time on Danielson\u2019s sailboat at the Berkeley Marina.\u00a0 Later LaSota bought his own sailboat.\u00a0 Still later,\u00a0 with partners recruited through \u201crationalist\u201d online groups,\u00a0 they bought the 94-foot former U.S. Navy tugboat\u00a0Panameta<\/em>,\u00a0 built in 1945,\u00a0 renamed the\u00a0Caleb<\/em>\u00a0and at the time anchored in Ketchikan,\u00a0 Alaska.<\/p>\n LaSota,\u00a0 Danielson,\u00a0 and crew,\u00a0 what remained of it after several defections,\u00a0 sailed the\u00a0Caleb\u00a0<\/em>to the Pillar Point yacht harbor in California in mid-2017.\u00a0 There it sank in March 2022.<\/p>\n <\/a> Alexander \u201cSomni\u201d Leatham.\u00a0 (Sonoma County Sheriff\u2019s Office photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Meanwhile LaSota,\u00a0 Danielson,\u00a0\u00a0et al<\/em>\u00a0met Curtis Lind,\u00a0 an older man who lived on a 117-foot yacht docked nearby.<\/p>\n In 2020 Lind sold the boat and moved to a property he owned in Vallejo,\u00a0 California,\u00a0 63 miles north.\u00a0 The \u201cZizians\u201d followed him,\u00a0 living on Lind\u2019s property in small box trucks,\u00a0 possibly the same ones they were living in when arrested in Maryland.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the summer of 2018,\u201d\u00a0 according to the\u00a0San Francisco Chronicle<\/em>\u00a0investigative team,\u00a0 joined by a fourth reporter,\u00a0 Rachel Swan, \u00a0\u201cLaSota participated in an apprenticeship program run by the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and the Center for Applied Rationality,\u201d\u00a0 founded by Berkeley-based artificial intelligence researcher Elizier Yudowsky,\u00a0 45.<\/p>\n That association apparently ended when LaSota failed to convert Yudowsky and other participants in the program to veganism.<\/p>\n <\/a> Amir \u201cEmma\u201d Borhanian.<\/strong><\/em> Eventually,\u00a0 on November 15,\u00a0 2019,\u00a0 LaSota and transgender associates Alexander \u201cSomni\u201d Leatham,\u00a0 Amir \u201cEmma\u201d Borhanian, \u00a0and Gwen Danielson disrupted a Center for Applied Rationality retreat near Occidental,\u00a0 California.<\/p>\n Charged with conspiracy,\u00a0 obstructing a police officer,\u00a0 and wearing masks for an unlawful purpose,\u00a0 LaSota,\u00a0 Borhanian,\u00a0 and Danielson delayed their prosecution by a variety of stratagems.<\/p>\n Finally,\u00a0 on August 19,\u00a0 2022, \u00a0LaSota faked his own death by drowning.\u00a0 LaSota\u2019s sister Naomi and the \u201cZizian\u201d Borhanian claimed in affidavits to the San Mateo County Superior Court to have been witnesses to LaSota falling from one of his boats and disappearing.<\/p>\n An obituary published in the Fairbanks\u00a0Daily News-Miner<\/em> and on Legacy.com mentioned that LaSota loved animals,\u00a0 one of the few published mentions of animals in connection with LaSota,\u00a0 despite LaSota\u2019s vehement veganism.<\/p>\n <\/a> Suri Dao.\u00a0 (Solano County District Attorney\u2019s Office photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Meanwhile back in Vallejo,\u00a0 Lind,\u00a0 then 80,\u00a0 began packing a pistol after a dispute with the \u201cZizians\u201d over unpaid rent.<\/p>\n In the early morning hours of November 15,\u00a0 2022,\u00a0 Lind testified,\u00a0 he was ambushed by three \u201cZizians\u201d who stabbed him multiple times,\u00a0 blinded his right eye,\u00a0 and ran him through with a samurai sword.<\/p>\n Lind,\u00a0 however,\u00a0 shot and killed Borhanian,\u00a0 critically wounding another \u201cZizian,\u201d\u00a0 Alexander Leatham.<\/p>\n \u201cProsecutors later charged Leatham,\u00a0 29,\u00a0 and another member of the group, \u00a0Suri Dao,\u201d\u00a0 then 21, \u201cwith murder,\u201d\u00a0 the\u00a0San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> team reported, \u201cunder the theory that it was their actions \u2014 not Lind\u2019s self-defense \u2014 that directly caused Borhanian\u2019s death,\u201d\u00a0 at age 31.<\/p>\n Law enforcement during the ensuing investigation discovered that LaSota was \u201calive and well.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> Maximilian Snyder. (LinkedIn photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n A little over six weeks after that,\u00a0 on the last day of 2022,\u00a0 one day before Michelle \u201cJamie\u201d Zajko turned 30,\u00a0 Richard Zajko and Jamie Zajko were shot dead in their Chester Heights home, \u00a0west of Philadelphia,\u00a0 leading to the apprehensions of Zajko,\u00a0 LaSota,\u00a0 and Blank on January 13,\u00a0 2023 at the Candlewood Suites hotel in Chester, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n All three were eventually released,\u00a0 keeping low profiles for the next year and a half.<\/p>\n Back in California,\u00a0 on January 16, \u00a02025,\u00a0 the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> team recounted,\u00a0 \u201ca Solano County prosecutor pleaded with a judge to push the case against Leatham and Suri Dao toward trial, \u00a0explaining that the key eyewitness,\u00a0 Curtis Lind, was now 82 years old with a fading memory.\u201d<\/p>\n Leatham and Dao potentially faced the death penalty.<\/p>\n The next day,\u00a0 however,\u00a0 January 17,\u00a0 2025,\u00a0 \u201ca man wearing all black put his arm around Lind and repeatedly stabbed him in the chest.\u00a0 They said the assailant ran off, \u00a0covered in blood, \u00a0only to return and slit Lind\u2019s throat,\u201d\u00a0 the San Francisco Chronicle <\/em>reported.<\/p>\n <\/a> Felix \u201cOphelia\u201d Bauckholt. (LinkedIn photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n \u201cSolano County prosecutors charged Maximilian Snyder, \u00a0a 22-year-old affiliated with LaSota\u2019s fringe group, \u00a0with killing Lind in an attempt to silence a witness,\u201d\u00a0 the San Francisco Chronicle <\/em>added.<\/p>\n With that case under investigation in California,\u00a0 U.S. Border Patrol agent David Maland and a fellow agent whose name has not been disclosed on January 20,\u00a0 2025 stopped a blue Prius on I-5 near Coventry,\u00a0 Vermont,\u00a0 about 14 miles from the Quebec border at Derby Line.<\/p>\n Both allegedly carried firearms bought by Michelle \u201cJamie\u201d Zajko.<\/p>\n The Prius driver was Felix \u201cOphelia\u201d Bauckholt, \u00a0a German transexual.\u00a0 The passenger, Teresa Youngblut, \u00a0a 21-year-old computer science student,\u00a0 pulled a handgun and fired at the Border Patrol agents,\u00a0 killing Maland.<\/p>\n <\/a> Teresa Youngblut. (Instagram photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Return fire killed Bauckholt,\u00a0 wounding Youngblut.<\/p>\n Youngblut was soon found to have attended the elite private Lakeside High School in Seattle with Maximilian Snyder,\u00a0 and to have recently applied for a Washington state license to marry Snyder.<\/p>\n Youngblut was charged with two federal crimes: \u00a0intentional use of a deadly weapon while forcibly assaulting or interfering with federal law enforcement, \u00a0and use and discharge of a firearm during and in relation to an assault with a deadly weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n The gun Youngblut used \u201chas been linked to the Dec. 31, 2022, killings of Richard and Rita Zajko in Pennsylvania,\u201d\u00a0 according to CBS News.<\/p>\nKnown \u201cZizians\u201d are mostly now in jail or dead,\u00a0 but are there more?<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cArrested in white box trucks\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
District Attorney\u2019s Office photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nGun belts with ammo<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nBusted together before<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nBeginnings of the cult<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nSplit with \u201cApplied Rationality\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(Solano County District Attorney\u2019s Office photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nJack LaSota faked his own death<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nShootout at the not okay corral<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nThe Zajko & Lind murders<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nShootout near the border<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nGun had history<\/h2>\n