This story, by and Peter D’Auria and Alan J. Keays, was first published by VTDigger, a nonprofit news outlet based in Vermont.
Three members of a group known as “Zizians” appeared in court Thursday afternoon for a bail hearing a day after being charged with new firearms misdemeanors, according to Allegany County, Maryland court records.
The three individuals — named in court documents as Jack Amadeus LaSota, Michelle Jacqueline Zajko and Daniel Arthur Blank — now face new indictments returned Wednesday. The trio face between nine and 14 misdemeanor counts each, mostly related to the possession of handguns, in addition to earlier charges of trespassing and obstructing arrest.
Zajko and LaSota, who is also known as “Ziz,” according to media reports, were also charged with one count of possessing or attempting to sell or buy an assault weapon. All three continued to be held without bail.
All the new charges, as well as the earlier ones, now appear to be filed in Allegany County Circuit Court, which is higher than the District Court where the case was initially filed.
The indictments contained the latest criminal charges to be handed down for the three individuals, who were arrested in Frostburg, Maryland, last month while trying to camp on private land. The three have ties, if tangled ones, to violence in several U.S. states, including the January shooting of a border patrol agent in Coventry.
In that incident, two individuals — named in court records as Felix Bauckholt and Teresa Youngblut — were pulled over by Border Patrol Agent David Maland Jan. 20. During the traffic stop, Youngblut opened fire, and the ensuing exchange of gunfire left Maland and Bauckholt dead and Youngblut injured, prosecutors allege.
Youngblut faces federal firearms charges but has not been charged with Maland’s killing, and authorities have not said publicly who fired the shot that killed the border patrol agent. Youngblut has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has been ordered held without bail.
Authorities said the guns that Youngblut and Bauckholt had on them at the time had been purchased by Zajko, a one time resident of Coventry, Vermont, who owns land in Derby. Blank had also lived with Zajko in Coventry for an unknown length of time, according to court records.
Zajko also faces a federal charge related to their firearms purchases in Vermont. She has not yet issued a plea related to that charge.
Both Zajko and Blank had ties to LaSota, who blogged under the name “Ziz.” The trio had been detained together before in Pennsylvania in 2023.
Authorities suspect the Zizians are connected to other killings, including the January death of a landlord in Vallejo, California, and the 2022 murder of Zajko’s parents in Pennsylvania, although none of the three Maryland defendants have been charged in connection with them.
The group has received international media attention over the past two months in part for the unusual belief system outlined by LaSota on their blog, which espouses strict veganism, unusual sleeping practices and meticulous and jargon-filled examinations of violence and retribution.
Prosecutors and attorneys for the three defendants could not be reached Thursday afternoon.
