(DCNF)—The transgender “Zizians” cult leader refused to answer basic questions and ranted about President Donald Trump during his Monday arraignment on a gun charge, The Baltimore Banner reported.

Jack “Ziz” LaSota, whose February arrest in Maryland concluded a nationwide manhunt, said Trump wants “genocide” against transgender people when a judge asked if he understood his charges, according to the outlet. The Department of Justice (DOJ) charged LaSota with possessing firearms and ammunition as a fugitive from justice after police found him and two others allegedly hiding in a box truck with loads of weapons. This was one of several strange crimes linked to the so-called Zizians.

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Cult leader Jack “Ziz” LaSota poses for a mugshot after his arrest in Maryland on Feb. 16, 2025. (Screenshot/Allegany County Sheriff’s Office)

“Your government is currently going around scooping up brown people and disappearing them,” the 33-year-old reportedly said while shackled by the ankles. “I’m transgender, and the intentions of this regime towards transgender people are very clear: genocide.”

LaSota declared that the judge was part of “an organized crime ring” run by the “states united in slavery,” according to The Baltimore Banner. When asked to state his name, he reportedly replied, “Justice,” and for his age, “Timeless.”

“I have been born many times,” LaSota reportedly said when the court asked for his birth year.

LaSota’s Maryland arrest came after he was arrested at a Pennsylvania hotel in 2023 on charges of obstructing police from investigating a fellow Zizian in her parents’ murder, though she did not end up facing charges, The Associated Press reported. Police have tied the Zizians, whose ideological goals are unclear, to at least six killings around the country, including the January shooting of a Border Patrol agent in Vermont on Inauguration Day.

A defense lawyer also invoked LaSota’s stated transgender identity in a Nov. 12 court motion complaining that the DOJ “offensively” refers to him as male and uses his “deadname” in its indictment. The motion linked to a USA Today article, “‘A Matter of Physical Safety’: What It Means to Deadname Someone and the Impact It Makes.”

Another transgender Zizian, Alexander Leatham, is charged with the attempted murder of a California landlord in 2022. He has been booted from court multiple times for loud outbursts about being mistreated as a transgender woman, according to Courthouse News.

“This is a show trial to coordinate the genocide of transgender people! What will you do when they come for you?” Leatham began shouting in a Sept. 10 hearing before three guards pulled him out, according to Courthouse News. He also complained of not receiving estrogen in jail.

“Where have the good men gone? Where are the gods?” he reportedly yelled — apparently quoting the 1984 Bonnie Tyler song, “Holding Out for a Hero.”

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