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Prosecutors are working to bring more charges soon against Teresa Youngblut, the Zizian cultist arrested after a shootout that left Border Patrol Agent David Maland dead in northern Vermont.

Youngblut, 21, is not yet directly charged in Maland’s death. She has been held on gun charges since the January shooting. On Friday, United States District Court Judge Christina Reiss approved a delay in Youngblut’s case to give her legal team time to digest new evidence coming from prosecutors, as well as the new charges likely to follow.

“[Defense] Counsel also notes that the government has informed the defense that it is actively exploring additional charges,” Reiss’s order states.

Teresa Youngblut

Youngblut was the only survivor of the Jan. 20 shooting that erupted during a traffic stop. Maland was killed, as was Youngblut’s companion, German national Felix “Ophelia” Bauckholt. 

Youngblut, who is accused of firing the surprise shots that killed Air Force veteran Maland, was injured by return fire.

The incident occurred in the Customs and Border Patrol’s Swanton Sector, which includes all of the New Hampshire border.

Both Bauckholt and Youngblut were armed with guns believed to have come from Michelle Zajko, 32, another member of the Zizian cult led by Jack “Ziz” Lasota. Lasota is considered a person of interest in the murders of Zajko’s parents, though he has yet to be charged in that case.

Lasota, 33, is the leader of a group of militant vegan-rationalist-transgender-techno cult who believe a super powerful artificial intelligence being, known as the Basilisk, is coming into creation to punish those who do not work to create it. 

Youngblut went to high school on the West Coast with another Zizian, Maximilian Snyder, and the two may or may not have been married. Snyder and Youngblut at one point took out a marriage license, but it is unclear if they followed through. Snyder is facing charges that he stabbed to death 82-year-old Curtis Lind in California. Lind had been scheduled to testify at an upcoming criminal trial of other Zizian cultists who tried to kill him in an earlier assault. Lind managed to fight them off and kill one with a gun he was carrying.

Bauckholt, for a time, shared a condo with Lasota in North Carolina. 

It’s unclear what Youngblut and Bauckholt were doing in Vermont. The pair was under surveillance and was seen walking around in black tactical gear carrying guns. Zajko owns a small piece of property in northern Vermont near the Canadian border. 

Some questions surrounding the Vermont shooting may start to get answered as prosecutors begin providing more evidence through discovery. 

Zajko is currently charged with federal gun crimes in Vermont and is being held in Maryland on other gun and trespassing charges. Zajko, Lasota, and Zizian Daniel Blank were arrested in February in Maryland. They all remain behind bars pending resolution of the Maryland charges.

Lasota began collecting young followers in California from the tech industry using “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality” as a holy book. The fan-fiction book is popular in the AI tech community and central to the quasi-scientific faith of Lasota and his followers.

Lasota subjected his followers to sleep deprivation as part of his attempts to unlock a separate personality in their brains. Typically, the “other person” is a different gender under Lasota’s regime. At least one reported suicide is linked to Lasota’s sleep deprivation techniques.

Lasota faked his own death in 2022, reportedly staging a boating accident in the waters between Alameda and South San Francisco. In 2023, Richard and Rita Zajko were murdered in their Pennsylvania home. Lasota, very much alive, was arrested and held as a person of interest in those murders for months before police let him go.

Vegan-transgender-AI cult leader Jack “Ziz” Lasota and two of his followers are facing new charges in Maryland as one cult member denies being part of a Pennsylvania double-murder linked to the group.

“I didn’t murder my parents,” Michele Zajko wrote in a letter made available this week to the Associated Press.

Zajko, 32, Lasota, 33, and Daniel Blank, 26, all currently in jail in Maryland, are considered persons of interest in the 2023 murders of Rita and Richard Zajko. Zajko is now linked to the murder of Border Agent David Maland. Zajko was charged in the United States District Court in Vermont with providing false information to a gun dealer when she bought guns later traced back to Maland’s reported killer, Teresa Youngblut.

Youngblut and Felix “Ophelia” Bauckholt shot at Maland during a traffic stop in Vermont near the Canadian border earlier this year. Bauckholt died in the shootout. Youngblut is being held on federal charges related to the shooting. Both Youngblut and Bauckholt are reputed members of the Ziz cult.

But Zajko denies the group is a cult, and blames the media for giving them that label.

“The little news I’ve gotten is enough to determine that my friends & I are being described as Satan’s lapdogs, the Devil, & the Manson family all rolled into one,” Zajko wrote. “My friends and I certainly don’t call ourselves ‘Zizians.’”

Lasota, Zajko, and Blank were arrested in Maryland in February and held on misdemeanor gun and trespassing charges. Before they could go to trial on those charges, their cases were transferred to Superior Court, and they were indicted on more serious counts. The new charges include carrying concealed and loaded handguns. The possible maximum penalties for each charge range from three months of incarceration for trespassing and up to five years for some of the gun charges. 

Lasota began collecting young followers in California from the tech industry using “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality” as a holy book. The fan-fiction book is popular in the AI tech community and central to the quasi-scientific faith of Lasota and his followers. Lasota reportedly believes in a coming AI apocalypse in which a super-AI being will destroy those who are not working to create it. Lasota also believes that not being vegan will mark people out for future torture by the AI being. 

Lasota subjected his followers to sleep deprivation as part of attempts to unlock a separate personality in their brains. Typically, that other person is a different gender under Lasota’s regime. There is at least one reported suicide linked to Lasota’s sleep deprivation techniques. 

Zizian cultists are also charged in the killing of Vallejo, Calif., man Curtis Lind, 82. Lind was set to testify against cult members after they allegedly tried to kill him a year ago when Ziz cultist Maximillian Snyder stabbed him. Snyder went to high school with Youngblut, and the two had a marriage license, though it is unclear if they ever married.