Alleged Zizian cult leader will represent self in Maryland federal prosecution

The alleged leader of the Zizians, a cultlike group linked to six deaths, will represent herself in a federal gun prosecution in Maryland.

U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar repeatedly warned at a Baltimore court hearing on Thursday that he believed Ziz LaSota would be unwise to dump her court-appointed lawyer in favor of going it alone.

“I believe you’ll be making a big mistake,” Bredar said.

Though LaSota said she was experiencing significant unfair treatment and conditions at a federal detention facility in Philadelphia, she said she still considered it “necessary” to represent herself.

Authorities have described LaSota as the apparent leader of the “Zizians,” a group of young, highly intelligent computer scientists who reportedly share radical beliefs about veganism, animal rights, gender identity and artificial intelligence.

Since 2022, members have been tied to several deaths, including a California landlord, and one of the member’s parents in Pennsylvania. A separate 2025 highway shootout in Vermont left a border agent and another Zizian member dead.

The Maryland charges stem from when LaSota and two others were arrested in February 2025 after a landowner found them living in box trucks at the end of a snow-covered dirt road in Allegany County. One of them, Michelle Zajko, has been charged in Pennsylvania with the double homicide of her parents and purchasing a firearm used in the murder of a border patrol agent last year, though LaSota has not been charged in any deaths.

LaSota is charged with being a fugitive from justice found in possession of firearms, and is facing a maximum penalty of 15 years if convicted.

LaSota, who was subject to a competency evaluation after rambling at a prior court appearance, previous changed attorneys, but said her latest counsel was not doing what she asked. In prison, she said she has been targeted for attacks and extortion. She claimed she had court paperwork stolen and was placed in segregated housing that limited her ability to work on her case.

Early during Thursday’s proceeding, LaSota said it “might not be wise for me to self-represent” in light of those challenges.

“I am very much convinced that if I go ahead, what happens [in court] will be a sham,” she said. “But if I let that convince me to take a lawyer because I would not be allowed fair due process in self-representation, then jail who staff who did this, other inmates who pushed me into prostitution, would be deciding the outcome of my case.”

Bredar told prosecutors to make sure LaSota’s rights were not being violated in detention.

At the close of the hearing, LaSota stressed concerns about being able to review voluminous evidence in the case given constraints of the facility and the court’s rules that prohibit her having unfettered access to materials.

“I object to the general snowball of injustice in front of me,” she said.

A trial is scheduled for late January.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.