Maryland
Competency review ordered for leader of cultlike Zizians group 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.
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 said another scheduling conference in the case would be scheduled after LaSota’s mental competency has been determined.
Bredar also expressed doubt LaSota’s trial, 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 told the judge she wants to represent herself.
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.
LaSota, Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank were arrested last February after a landowner found them living in box trucks at the end of a snow-covered dirt road. Though they are not charged with causing any of the six deaths, police quickly connected them to the homicide investigations in California, Pennsylvania and Vermont.
Maryland state Trooper Brandon Jeffries wrote after their Feb. 16, 2025, arrests that all the “suspects involved are to be questioned regarding other crimes that have occurred across the country and have ties with the Zizians Cult.”
All three face state charges of trespassing and illegal gun and drug possession, while LaSota faces a federal charge of illegal gun possession by a fugitive. LaSota also is charged with obstructing the investigation into the deaths of Zajko’s parents. Authorities have called Zajko a person of interest in that case and said they are investigating Blank.
“Ms. LaSota eschews the term Zizian and denies any and all allegations that she and her friends have formed a cult,” LaSota’s lawyers wrote in a recent court filing.
Proctor and co-counsel Jennifer Smith argue that police violated LaSota’s Fourth Amendment right to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure and that she was not trespassing because the landowner had given them until the next day to leave. They also argue that police illegally searched the box trucks without a warrant and therefore any evidence recovered should be barred from trial.
In their response, prosecutors countered that police had probable cause to arrest LaSota and her associates for trespassing, even if they had been given permission to stay another day because the permission didn’t apply retroactively. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Beim also argued that police were justified in conducting a protective sweep for weapons for officer safety and to determine whether anyone was hiding in the trucks. He said officers reasonably suspected LaSota and the others were potentially violent, based on information from media reports about the group.
Massachusetts
States sue Trump administration to challenge policy requiring colleges to collect race data
BOSTON (AP) — A coalition of 17 Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging a Trump administration policy that requires higher education institutions to collect data showing they aren’t considering race in admissions.
President Donald Trump ordered the new policy in August after he raised concerns that colleges and universities were using personal statements and other proxies to consider race, which he views as illegal discrimination.
In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled against the use of affirmative action in admissions but said colleges may still consider how race has shaped students’ lives if applicants share that information in their admissions essays.
“This Administration’s unlawful and haphazard actions are threatening the well-being of Massachusetts students and the prosperity of our colleges and universities,” Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said in a statement. “There is no way for institutions to reasonably deliver accurate data in the federal government’s rushed and arbitrary time frame, and it is unfair for schools to be threatened with fines, potential losses of funding, and baseless investigations should they not fulfill the Administration’s request.”
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Boston.
Ellen Keast, an Education Department spokesperson, defended the data collection.
“American taxpayers invest over $100 billion into higher education each year and deserve transparency on how their dollars are being spent,” Keast said in a statement. “The Department’s efforts will expand an existing transparency tool to show how universities are taking race into consideration in admissions. What exactly are State AGs trying to shield universities from?”
The new policy is similar to parts of recent settlement agreements the government negotiated with Brown University and Columbia University, restoring their federal research money. The universities agreed to give the government data on the race, grade-point average and standardized test scores of applicants, admitted students and enrolled students. The schools also agreed to be audited by the government and to release admissions statistics to the public.
The memo directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to require colleges to report more data “to provide adequate transparency into admissions.” The National Center for Education Statistics will collect new data, including the race and sex of colleges’ applicants, admitted students and enrolled students. McMahon said the data, which is due by March 18, must be disaggregated by race and sex and retroactively reported for the past seven years.
If colleges fail to submit timely, complete and accurate data, McMahon can take action under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which outlines requirements for colleges receiving federal financial aid for students, according to the memo.
Campbell argues the survey is rushed and “leaves institutions vulnerable to inadvertent errors and unreliable data that could lead to cost penalties and baseless investigations into their practices and that jeopardizes student privacy and could lead to individuals being easily identified.”
The government uses the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, or IPEDS, to gather information from thousands of colleges and universities that receive federal aid. The coalition also argues that the new data collection demands jeopardize student privacy.
“Many institutions have data protection obligations to their students, which are placed at risk by the Administration’s new IPEDS demands for in-depth information about individual students,” the plaintiffs wrote in the lawsuit.
Netherlands
International court drops investigation into U.S. sanctions on Venezuela
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The International Criminal Court is dropping an investigation into whether U.S. sanctions against Venezuela qualified as crimes against humanity, prosecutors said Thursday.
Venezuela asked the ICC in 2020 to look into what it called “unlawful coercive measures,” arguing the asset freezes and travel bans targeting Venezuelan officials, first imposed by the United States under President Barack Obama, had caused “widespread suffering.”
Following an initial investigation, prosecutors declined to move forward, citing a lack of evidence.
In a statement, the international court’s prosecutor’s office said that while it was “generally accepted” that sanctions “may have exacerbated an existing dire humanitarian situation,” there was not enough evidence of “necessary intent” to pursue criminal charges.
The court noted that the closure of the investigation is “unrelated to the January 2026 events in Venezuela.”
In January U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, spiriting them out of the country in a lightning military strike. The U.S. has also carried out a series of strikes on boats it says were carrying drugs from Venezuela.
The examination of U.S. sanctions is separate from the court’s ongoing investigation into possible crimes committed by Venezuelan security forces under Maduro’s rule during a crackdown on anti-government protests in 2017.
Last year, appeals judges ordered chief prosecutor Karim Khan to recuse himself from an investigation into Venezuela, citing a conflict of interest. Khan’s sister-in-law, international criminal lawyer Venkateswari Alagendra, has been part of a team representing Maduro’s government.
Khan is currently on leave from the court, having stepped down temporarily pending an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.
Separately, the prosecutor’s office said Thursday that it was moving forward with an investigation into possible crimes against humanity committed by Belarus.
In 2024, Lithuania asked the ICC to open an investigation into its neighbor over severe crackdowns faced by opposition groups.
Lithuania claims the hard-line president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, forced dissidents over the border, giving the court jurisdiction. Lithuania is a member of the court, but Belarus is not.
The decision opens up the possibility that Lukashenko and other Belarusian officials could face charges at the ICC.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the Belarusian opposition leader in exile, applauded the decision. “This decision restores hope — that justice will prevail, that those responsible will be held accountable, and that the victims will finally receive truth and justice,” she said in a statement to The Associated Press. —
Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia contributed to this report.
Competency review ordered for leader of cultlike Zizians group 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.
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 said another scheduling conference in the case would be scheduled after LaSota’s mental competency has been determined.
Bredar also expressed doubt LaSota’s trial, 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 told the judge she wants to represent herself.
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.
LaSota, Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank were arrested last February after a landowner found them living in box trucks at the end of a snow-covered dirt road. Though they are not charged with causing any of the six deaths, police quickly connected them to the homicide investigations in California, Pennsylvania and Vermont.
Maryland state Trooper Brandon Jeffries wrote after their Feb. 16, 2025, arrests that all the “suspects involved are to be questioned regarding other crimes that have occurred across the country and have ties with the Zizians Cult.”
All three face state charges of trespassing and illegal gun and drug possession, while LaSota faces a federal charge of illegal gun possession by a fugitive. LaSota also is charged with obstructing the investigation into the deaths of Zajko’s parents. Authorities have called Zajko a person of interest in that case and said they are investigating Blank.
“Ms. LaSota eschews the term Zizian and denies any and all allegations that she and her friends have formed a cult,” LaSota’s lawyers wrote in a recent court filing.
Proctor and co-counsel Jennifer Smith argue that police violated LaSota’s Fourth Amendment right to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure and that she was not trespassing because the landowner had given them until the next day to leave. They also argue that police illegally searched the box trucks without a warrant and therefore any evidence recovered should be barred from trial.
In their response, prosecutors countered that police had probable cause to arrest LaSota and her associates for trespassing, even if they had been given permission to stay another day because the permission didn’t apply retroactively. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Beim also argued that police were justified in conducting a protective sweep for weapons for officer safety and to determine whether anyone was hiding in the trucks. He said officers reasonably suspected LaSota and the others were potentially violent, based on information from media reports about the group.
Massachusetts
States sue Trump administration to challenge policy requiring colleges to collect race data
BOSTON (AP) — A coalition of 17 Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging a Trump administration policy that requires higher education institutions to collect data showing they aren’t considering race in admissions.
President Donald Trump ordered the new policy in August after he raised concerns that colleges and universities were using personal statements and other proxies to consider race, which he views as illegal discrimination.
In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled against the use of affirmative action in admissions but said colleges may still consider how race has shaped students’ lives if applicants share that information in their admissions essays.
“This Administration’s unlawful and haphazard actions are threatening the well-being of Massachusetts students and the prosperity of our colleges and universities,” Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said in a statement. “There is no way for institutions to reasonably deliver accurate data in the federal government’s rushed and arbitrary time frame, and it is unfair for schools to be threatened with fines, potential losses of funding, and baseless investigations should they not fulfill the Administration’s request.”
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Boston.
Ellen Keast, an Education Department spokesperson, defended the data collection.
“American taxpayers invest over $100 billion into higher education each year and deserve transparency on how their dollars are being spent,” Keast said in a statement. “The Department’s efforts will expand an existing transparency tool to show how universities are taking race into consideration in admissions. What exactly are State AGs trying to shield universities from?”
The new policy is similar to parts of recent settlement agreements the government negotiated with Brown University and Columbia University, restoring their federal research money. The universities agreed to give the government data on the race, grade-point average and standardized test scores of applicants, admitted students and enrolled students. The schools also agreed to be audited by the government and to release admissions statistics to the public.
The memo directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to require colleges to report more data “to provide adequate transparency into admissions.” The National Center for Education Statistics will collect new data, including the race and sex of colleges’ applicants, admitted students and enrolled students. McMahon said the data, which is due by March 18, must be disaggregated by race and sex and retroactively reported for the past seven years.
If colleges fail to submit timely, complete and accurate data, McMahon can take action under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which outlines requirements for colleges receiving federal financial aid for students, according to the memo.
Campbell argues the survey is rushed and “leaves institutions vulnerable to inadvertent errors and unreliable data that could lead to cost penalties and baseless investigations into their practices and that jeopardizes student privacy and could lead to individuals being easily identified.”
The government uses the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, or IPEDS, to gather information from thousands of colleges and universities that receive federal aid. The coalition also argues that the new data collection demands jeopardize student privacy.
“Many institutions have data protection obligations to their students, which are placed at risk by the Administration’s new IPEDS demands for in-depth information about individual students,” the plaintiffs wrote in the lawsuit.
Netherlands
International court drops investigation into U.S. sanctions on Venezuela
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The International Criminal Court is dropping an investigation into whether U.S. sanctions against Venezuela qualified as crimes against humanity, prosecutors said Thursday.
Venezuela asked the ICC in 2020 to look into what it called “unlawful coercive measures,” arguing the asset freezes and travel bans targeting Venezuelan officials, first imposed by the United States under President Barack Obama, had caused “widespread suffering.”
Following an initial investigation, prosecutors declined to move forward, citing a lack of evidence.
In a statement, the international court’s prosecutor’s office said that while it was “generally accepted” that sanctions “may have exacerbated an existing dire humanitarian situation,” there was not enough evidence of “necessary intent” to pursue criminal charges.
The court noted that the closure of the investigation is “unrelated to the January 2026 events in Venezuela.”
In January U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, spiriting them out of the country in a lightning military strike. The U.S. has also carried out a series of strikes on boats it says were carrying drugs from Venezuela.
The examination of U.S. sanctions is separate from the court’s ongoing investigation into possible crimes committed by Venezuelan security forces under Maduro’s rule during a crackdown on anti-government protests in 2017.
Last year, appeals judges ordered chief prosecutor Karim Khan to recuse himself from an investigation into Venezuela, citing a conflict of interest. Khan’s sister-in-law, international criminal lawyer Venkateswari Alagendra, has been part of a team representing Maduro’s government.
Khan is currently on leave from the court, having stepped down temporarily pending an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.
Separately, the prosecutor’s office said Thursday that it was moving forward with an investigation into possible crimes against humanity committed by Belarus.
In 2024, Lithuania asked the ICC to open an investigation into its neighbor over severe crackdowns faced by opposition groups.
Lithuania claims the hard-line president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, forced dissidents over the border, giving the court jurisdiction. Lithuania is a member of the court, but Belarus is not.
The decision opens up the possibility that Lukashenko and other Belarusian officials could face charges at the ICC.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the Belarusian opposition leader in exile, applauded the decision. “This decision restores hope — that justice will prevail, that those responsible will be held accountable, and that the victims will finally receive truth and justice,” she said in a statement to The Associated Press. —
Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia contributed to this report.
