Competency review ordered for leader of cultlike Zizians group that has been linked to 6 deaths

BALTIMORE (AP) — A lawyer representing the leader of the cultlike Zizians group that has been linked to six deaths told a judge Thursday that there is reason to believe his client is mentally incompetent to stand trial on a federal gun charge.

Jack LaSota, a transgender woman who goes by “Ziz,” was supposed to be in federal court for a two-day hearing on whether to suppress evidence collected as a result of her arrest in Frostburg, Maryland, last year. Instead, U.S. District Court Judge James Bredar granted a motion filed late Wednesday seeking a competency evaluation.

The judge said LaSota, who has been detained in the Allegany County Detention Center, will be held in federal custody — at least while the mental competency exam is done and a report is prepared. Bredar also expressed doubt that LaSota’s trial on related state charges, which is set for June in western Maryland, will proceed as scheduled, due to the federal court’s finding.

“Counsel believes there is reasonable cause to believe that the defendant is presently suffering from a mental disease or defect rendering her mentally incompetent to the extent that she is unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings,” attorney Gary Proctor wrote.

As the hearing got underway, Proctor said LaSota has demonstrated an inability to follow proceedings, equating being a fugitive with being transgender and accusing a judge of being part of an organized crime ring.

LaSota, sitting between her two lawyers in orange jail clothes, told the judge that Proctor had “confidently asserted to the court” in a previous hearing that she was competent and urged the judge to consider the complete court record.

“I will take your viewpoint into account. I promise you,” Bredar said.

Authorities have described LaSota as the apparent leader of what outsiders call the “Zizians,” a group of young, highly intelligent computer scientists who appear to share radical beliefs about veganism, animal rights, gender identity and artificial intelligence. Since 2022, members have been tied to the death of one of their own during an attack on a California landlord, the landlord’s subsequent killing, the shooting deaths of one of the member’s parents in Pennsylvania, and a highway shootout in Vermont that left a border agent and another Zizian dead.