There has been some movement in the cases of the multiple people tied to a small but violent, cult-like group that originated in the Bay Area several years ago. And two suspects who are charged with the murder of their associate and the attempted murder of the former landlord were back in court this week in Solano County.
Alexander "Somni" Leatham, 30, and co-defendant Suri Dao, 24, are both tied to a group seemingly led by Jack "Ziz" LaSota, who espoused some bizarre beliefs about human morality, trans identity, and who continued to have some allegiance with the Berkeley-based Rationalist movement. Most of those associated with the group, including Leatham and LaSota, have computer programming backgrounds and identify as trans women.
LaSota was reportedly present on the property of Curtis Lind in Vallejo when, early on the morning of November 13, 2022, three of her associates allegedly attacked Lind, with Leatham allegedly wielding a sword that impaled Lind through the torso. A witness described Lind as "bleeding like a stuck pig," with a gaping wound near his right eye and the sword sticking through his chest.
The group was imminently being threatened with eviction, after living out of solar-powered box trucks on Lind's property since 2019, and having not paid rent since a few months into their stay. (A pandemic moratorium on evictions had tied Lind's hands until the late fall of 2022.)
While LaSota was not charged in the attack, there has been the implication that she had directed it. Leatham and Dao were arrested, and their friend Emma Borhanian was killed by Lind in the scuffle.
They both stand charged with Lind's attempted murder and Borhanian's murder, and their trial date — though it seems likely to be postponed — is currently set for October 21.
As the Vacaville Reporter reports, Leatham appeared in court Thursday, "shackled while seated in a chair, strands of her brown hair reaching her shoulders," reading a handwritten note to the judge requesting a change of counsel. The so-called "Marsden motion" allows a California criminal defendent to seek alternate representation due to irreconciliable difference or inadequate representation — Leatham has, in the past, insisted that her attorney be vegan, and that may or may not figure into this motion.
Dao, who appeared in court Thursday as well with her lawyer, SF-based Brian Ford, was recenty transferred back to Solano County Jail from the California Insitution for Women in Chino, where it had been suggested she was receiving mental health care. Ford has filed motions to supress evidence, known as in limine motions, which Judge John B. Ellis said he would hear fully on September 24.
The Chronicle earlier identified Dao as, possibly, a person who had once gone by the name Tessa Berns and became estranged from family and friends in Denver in the years prior to surfacing in LaSota's orbit in Vallejo. Berns had been a National Merit Scholar and told friends as a teen that they identified as bi-gender.
The judge said he would rule on Leatham's Marsden motion next week, on September 18.
Things were more dramatic in a courtroom with a different judge on Wednesday, as Courthouse News reports, with Leatham delivering one of her now familiar outbursts. In front of Judge Daniel Healy, she reportedly read from a statement saying, "I am an innocent woman! I have done nothing wrong! This is a show trial to coordinate the genocide of transgender people! What will you do when they come for you?" She also reportedly said she had been "kidnapped [by a] gang of dead-eyed brutes" who were denying her estrogen while in prison, and said, "Where have the good men gone? Where are the gods?"
The earlier hearing on Wednesday included an accusation from the prosecution that the defense is seeking to delay the trial, and a motion by Leatham's attorney, Carole Long, for a continuance due to a previously planned personal trip of her own.
Also facing trial in Solano County is 23-year-old Maximilian Snyder, who allegedly completed the job of killed Lind, stabbing him on his property this past January — though Snyder's ties to LaSota remain unclear.
Across the country in Maryland, LaSota remains behind bars along with associates Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank, after the trio was found trespassing on some rural property and arrested in February. LaSota was indicted by a federal grand jury in June for being a fugitive in possession of multiple weapons — and we first learned that Ziz had other aliases including Andrea Phelps, Ann Grimes, Anne Grimes, Canaris, and Julia LaSota.
Zajko, Blank, and LaSota remain persons of interest in the deaths of Zajko's parents outside Philadelphia on December 31, 2022.
And in Vermont, another associate, Teresa Youngblut, remains in federal custody and was indicted by a grand jury last month for the murder of Border Patrol Agent David "Chris" Maland in a January altercation near the Canadian border. Another associate of the Zizians, Ophelia Bauckholt, was also killed in the ensuing shootout.
