Chief of cultlike group linked to a number of killings is arrested in Maryland
The chief of a cultlike group that has been linked to a number of killings, together with the deadly capturing of a Border Patrol officer in Vermont final month, was arrested in Maryland on costs of trespassing and different crimes, authorities mentioned Monday.
Jack LaSota, 34, who goes by “Ziz” and has espoused the risks of synthetic intelligence, was taken into custody Sunday in Frostburg, a rural space roughly halfway between Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., Maryland State Police mentioned in a press release.
LaSota, of Berkeley, California, additionally faces a firearms cost and obstructing and hindering, in keeping with the assertion. Two different folks — Michelle Zajko, 32, of Media, Pennsylvania, and Daniel Clean, 26, of Sacramento, California — had been arrested on related costs.
All three had been being held at a neighborhood jail, state police mentioned. It was not instantly clear whether or not they have legal professionals to talk on their behalf.
The state police assertion, which didn’t present extra particulars concerning the costs, famous that the company is working with federal regulation enforcement and the Allegany County state’s lawyer workplace in an ongoing investigation.
LaSota, a pc programmer beforehand related to a Berkeley-based group that seeks to make use of mathematical and logical ideas to enhance the world, was mentioned to have died in a boating accident in August 2022, in keeping with a short obituary that appeared in her hometown newspaper in Alaska.
However since then, LaSota, who identifies as a lady, and her associates have been linked to a collection of violent assaults, together with a 2022 stabbing that left an 80-year-old man partially blind. That sufferer was killed final month in a murder that prosecutors mentioned had was supposed to maintain him from testifying within the trial linked to the preliminary assault, which is scheduled to start this spring.
LaSota has not been charged in reference to that killing, however authorities discovered her on the scene of the assault in 2022, simply three months after she had supposedly died, in keeping with an e mail a prosecutor despatched to one in every of LaSota’s attorneys on the time.
In January 2023, the dad and mom of Michelle Zajko — the lady arrested Sunday — had been discovered lifeless of their Pennsylvania dwelling. Each had been fatally shot. LaSota was charged with obstructing the investigation into their deaths and was launched from jail after having posted $10,000 bail.
A bench warrant for LaSota’s arrest was issued after she failed to seem in courtroom. Her whereabouts had been unknown as lately as earlier this month.
Zajko was taken into custody in reference to the killing of her dad and mom, however she was later launched and has not been charged of their deaths.
One other follower of LaSota’s — German nationwide Ophelia Bauckholt — was fatally shot final month in an alternate of gunfire with Border Patrol brokers in Vermont. The capturing occurred throughout a site visitors cease, when one other particular person using with Backhault drew a gun and fired at one of many brokers, in keeping with federal prosecutors.
Bauckholt and Border Patrol agent David Maland had been fatally shot within the gunbattle. In accordance with an FBI affidavit, Bauckholt was shot after she pulled out a firearm.
The circumstances of the capturing stay underneath investigation, and the particular person using with Bauckholt, Teresa Youngblut, has pleaded not responsible to firearms costs.
Shortly after the capturing, federal authorities despatched an alert asking firearms sellers in Vermont for his or her assist figuring out any purchases made by Michelle Zajko, whom the alert identifies as an individual of curiosity within the deadly capturing of Maland.
