‘Zizian’ suspect to face charges in escape attempt from Solano County jail

One of two people charged with murder in connection with a stabbing attack that seriously wounded a Vallejo landlord and led to the death of an alleged accomplice in the attack was back in court Tuesday for a preliminary hearing on a charge of attempting to escape county jail.

Alexander Jeffrey Leatham, 30, a transgender woman from the East Bay town of Albany, is charged in the death of Emma Borhanian and the attempted murder of Curtis Lind, their Vallejo landlord, with an enhancement of inflicting great bodily injury on a victim 70 years or older.

RELATED: One year after Bay Area landlord’s slaying, Zizians cases still grab headlines

Lind, who suffered stab wounds, shot and killed Borhanian, 31, during the assault, and, under the felony murder law, Leatham is charged with her death. Leatham also faces charges of intentionally causing the permanent disability and disfigurement and deprivation of a limb, organ, and body of Lind, who lost an eye in the attack.

In court Tuesday, Leatham rocked in his chair and listened as Solano County Deputy Sheriff Wes Simpson was called to testify about the alleged escape attempt that he said occurred in December while Leatham was transported to court in Vallejo.

Deputy District Attorney Ilana Shapiro asked Simpson to explain what happened and then played video from security cameras at the Vallejo courthouse and Simpson’s body camera footage to reinforce the testimony.

Simpson testified that he had transported Leatham in a county transport vehicle with individual cells for inmates from Fairfield to the Vallejo courthouse. After entering through security gates and stopping near a secure door that gives officers access to bring inmates into the back of the courthouse, he said he opened the transport vehicle door to allow Leatham to get out of the vehicle. Leatham was shackled in “leg irons and belly chains,” and Simpson said that as she exited the vehicle, she bolted to the back of the transport and toward the open gate that the vehicle had just entered.

Leatham “attempted to run past the secure door toward the gate,” he said. “I grabbed her, and she fell to the floor, and while she was down, she attempted to crawl toward the open gate.”

As Leatham fell to the ground, he said, she began to yell “I am a female” and “something about transgender and genocide that I couldn’t make out, it was muffled.”

Before Leatham’s defense attorney, Alternate Public Defender Shelly Saini, could cross-examine the officer in court on Tuesday, Leatham began repeatedly shouting and interrupting the proceedings, as he has done at previous court appearances.

“Burn in hell, Officer Wesley Simpson!” Leatham shouted. “Your genocide of transgender people does not win in the end! Everyone knows that I am biologically female!”

After repeatedly warning Leatham that she would be removed from court, Ellis had her removed and taken back to jail, noting that Saini would remain and represent Leatham’s interests.

Saini asked Simpson if he recalled referring to Leatham using male pronouns on the day of the court escape incident alleged by prosecutors. After showing him his incident report, the officer said he had referred to Leatham in the report as “him.”

Judge Ellis ruled that the prosecution had shown enough evidence to hold Leatham for trial on the escape charge. Leatham will be arraigned on March 2 at 8:30 a.m. in Ellis’ courtroom. That is also the date and time sent for a trial management hearing in the homicide case.

Leatham and a co-defendant, Suri Dao, who has since been ruled incompetent to face trial and is being placed in a state hospital, are members of a cult-like group called the Zizians. Investigators have said Zizians are a violent, anti-social group whose members adhered to a distinctive ideology of radical veganism and anarchism. Led by Jack “Ziz” LaSota, a former tech worker, the group became increasingly extreme over the years. Several Zizian members have been implicated in a series of six murders across the United States between 2022 and 2025.

The case took an unexpected turn last year, when fellow Zizian Maximilian Bentley Snyder, 23, of Washington state, was accused of fatally stabbing Lind, 82, on Jan. 17 at his property in Vallejo. Lind was set to testify in the trial against Dao and Leatham.