The alleged leader of a cultlike group linked to several killings made her first appearance in federal court Monday, denouncing the government and its case against her as a “genocide” against transgender people.

Ziz LaSota, who was originally charged under what her attorney referred to as her deadname, gave meandering answers at her initial appearance and arraignment in U.S. District Court in downtown Baltimore related to a Western Maryland gun arrest, which ended what had been a cross-country search.

She refused to stand when the judge entered the courtroom, or when entering her plea of not guilty.

“Your government is currently going around scooping up brown people and disappearing them,” the 33-year-old LaSota said when asked by U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas R. Miller if she understood the charges she faces. “I’m transgender, and the intentions of this regime towards transgender people are very clear: genocide.”

LaSota was being sought by law enforcement authorities in multiple states when she and two others were arrested in Frostburg on gun and trespassing charges in February. Federal prosecutors then obtained a grand jury indictment in June for a charge of possession of firearms and ammunition by a fugitive.

LaSota remains in custody in Allegany County, awaiting trial there.

The Zizians have been tied to the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent near the Canadian border in January and five other homicides in Vermont, Pennsylvania and California, though the exact role of LaSota, who faked her death in 2022, is unclear and she has not been charged in those deaths. She’s been seen at crime scenes, questioned by authorities and, in one instance, arrested on charges of obstructing police in Pennsylvania.

The Associated Press has reported that the Zizians are a group of young, highly intelligent computer scientists, most of them in their 20s and 30s, who met online, shared anarchist beliefs and became increasingly violent. Their online writings span topics from radical veganism to gender identity to artificial intelligence.

LaSota, the apparent leader and a former computer programmer, believes that the two hemispheres of the human brain can operate separately from one another, with one side holding different beliefs and existing as a different gender than the other, The Associated Press reported.

Alleged Zizian member Teresa Youngblut is charged with the murder of border agent David Maland in Vermont, and federal authorities have said they will seek the death penalty.

Shackled at the ankles during her court appearance on Monday, LaSota walked very slowly into the downtown Baltimore courtroom wearing an orange jail jumpsuit. Two Allegany County sheriff’s deputies sat in the second row.

As the judge asked basic questions such as whether she had read the indictment and understood the maximum possible penalties, LaSota chided the “mock proceedings” and said Miller was a “participant in an organized crime ring” led by the “states united in slavery.”

Miller struggled to get LaSota to answer basic questions.

Please state your name for the record, the court clerk said.

“Justice,” she replied.

What is your age?

“Timeless.”

What year were you born?

“I have been born many times.”

LaSota’s trial in Allegany County, originally scheduled to begin next month, has been rescheduled for February.

Prosecutors said the federal case would take about three days to try. Defense attorney Gary Proctor, in an apparent nod to how long what should have been a perfunctory appearance on Monday ended up taking, called the estimate “overly optimistic.”