Recently, the remaining members of the Jared “Dallas” Roark cult seem to be feeling more comfortable showing up to public events and protests, and openly recruiting via front groups in Austin and now in New York City. In light of this, we wanted to share updates and information to help people in their areas of operation recognize and avoid them.
The previous policy of the website has been to only share the names, pictures and information of the top leaders, but because the cult can’t be reliably identified by name, lurking behind rebranded front groups and covert representatives, we have chosen to also give in this post some information on a couple of individuals who are known to be currently at the forefront of propaganda and recruiting. Our hope is it may be possible to neutralize the cult enough in this early stage of reorganization that it won’t ever get off the ground again.
We’d like to thank the dozens of people – former members and locals who have kept their eyes and ears open – who have helped us compile this information over the last year. What began as a few loosely connected individuals and one person running this website has turned into a diverse network representing many tactics but one goal – suppressing the ability of Jared and his followers to amass a new following and harm more people as we were harmed.
Since March 2022, after the mass exodus of CR-CPUSA members and members of its public facing organizations, a small core of leaders have been attempting to consolidate their very few remaining followers, rebrand, and recruit a new set of loyal adherents. For those of us familiar with Jared Roark and his cronies their plans are almost transparent despite them making few public statements. Through eyewitness accounts and analyzing each individual involved over the last two years, we feel confident that we can give a reasonably reliable account of what they think, what they want, and what they’re doing.
New York City – “Samad” and “Columbia Social Workers for Palestine“
One of the most concerning updates we have to share is that one of Jared Roark’s remaining fanatics, who has a disturbing track record himself, has now started an organization in New York City at Columbia University and begun recruiting more followers to the cult.
“Samad,” as he’s currently known, was previously in local leadership over Pittsburgh for several years and then relocating to Austin in 2021. He has now moved to New York City to begin graduate school at Columbia University. Former members will know him as “Shahid,” “Ricardo,” and “Reza”. Through local contacts in NYC, we obtained definitive proof he started a front group for Jared Roark that has successfully gained media attention and recruited followers: Columbia Social Workers for Palestine (CSSW4P).
Samad is attending Columbia to obtain a master’s in social work, with the aim of becoming a therapist — a development of obvious ethical concern while he has shown no remorse for his past actions and because of his continued commitment to a violent high control organization– one whose leader forced his wife to quit therapy because it was “turning her against him.” In fact, Samad still upholds the cult’s belief that therapy is “bourgeois” and only “class struggle” can provide mental health relief, which for the cult looks like verbal and physical abuse in the form of criticism/self-criticism and attack therapy “struggle sessions,” in some cases even convincing followers that committing vandalism and assault against “class enemies” will cure anxiety and depression. Samad’s pursuit of a master’s in social work is a strategy to gain inroads to the poor “masses,” which the cult views as its base of support. His relationship with his clients and patients will be one of coercing people already in a vulnerable place to get involved in and exploited by an abusive organization, taught to connect their hoped-for relief and happiness to harmful behaviors and to the “great leadership” of a man who went to prison after pistol whipping a follower who tried to leave.
As a front, CSSW4P characteristically seeks to exploit an important liberation struggle as a mode to recruit people who want to make a difference, into the dead-end of serving Jared and his vision of a communist party. We confirmed that CSSW4P has already recruited several members and that Samad has been preemptively indoctrinating them against accusations of mistreatment and abuse so that they dismiss the overwhelming number of testimonies and evidence published here and elsewhere. Despite its efforts to hide its connections to the CR-CPUSA and brand itself as an independent local organization, some public proof that Samad has already converted and coached some members in cult rhetoric can be seen/heard in this video, where their speeches iterate the cult’s ideology and common talking points, cloaking themselves in revolutionary phrasing: Event at Columbia School of Social Work – YouTube (Note: we do not endorse the equally reactionary source of the video).
Samad writes for the cult’s newspaper under the name “Farroukh Abadi,” as in this report on a picket line at Columbia. In an example of the cult’s intentional (feds?) or unintentional (fools?) poor informational security, Samad’s inclusion of a quote from a fellow student at the school for social work provides further evidence of his authorship of the article, what school he’s a part of, and that he’s recruiting people to participate in the Worker. We appreciate the free intel! The connection between CSSW4P and the Worker has been further corroborated through contact with local sources, who verified that members CSSW4O also write for and distribute the cult’s newspaper.
Samad started organizing at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, as an undergrad. In his leadership position there, he sexually harassed both women and men subordinates. He befriended one young activist and earned her trust, only to coerce her to come forward about being raped so that he could use her story as fodder for organizing a campaign to recruit people. He also propositioned her and her boyfriend, both under his leadership, to have a threesome, and cited Alexandra Kollontai’s work criticizing monogamy to try and convince her to date him along with her boyfriend.
After graduating from UM, Samad relocated to one of the cult’s hubs, Pittsburgh. There, some of his most abusive behavior was towards his partner. From openly speaking about his jealousy and anger towards his partner because he perceived she was a more competent organizer, he proceeded to use his leadership position to sabotage her work and abuse her. He mobilized the two other leaders of the Pittsburgh triumvirate, Liam Swanson and another man no longer involved with Jared’s group, to compel her to stay in a relationship with him when she wanted to break up. Samad, along with these two other leaders, tried to convince her that her chronic illness was “psychosomatic” and that she should consider going to inpatient treatment for mental illness. She was forced to submit reports to leadership about how she was working to improve the relationship, and they held routine meetings to convince her to stay with Samad, because it “served the reconstitution effort.” They confiscated her phone, which was her connection to both family lifelines and organizing contacts, removing her from political work, so that she would “focus on spending time with Samad.”
Samad regularly demonstrated an obsession with violence and humiliating others. In charge of Pittsburgh’s “military” branch of the cult, he enjoyed the ability to give orders and have people leap to obey, or else he punished them with verbal abuse and even physical trials. Samad idolized figures like Stalin and Gonzalo in terms of the power and violence they represented to him. Before them, he was fixated on fascist leaders, even painting a portrait of Hitler for a school project. His conversion to Gonzaloism represents a continuity from fascist impulses, not a rupture with them. For example, he also thinks being transgender is “bourgeois,” would make homophobic jokes, and was a core proponent in Pittsburgh in bullying people for being trans and nonbinary.
Eventually in 2021 he fell out of favor with leadership after his history of sexism was reflecting too poorly on them to brush under the rug, and after his reckless actions got someone arrested (in another act of reckless endangerment, he once chose to examine a handgun in a moving car, and ended up aiming it towards children playing in a park). From his abuse of women to the unnecessary arrest he caused, he’s a good example of how the people who rise to the top in Jared’s organization often leave the wreckage of many better activists and campaigns in their wake, serving as good as any COINTELPRO. Top leadership was aware of all this and denounced Samad and forced him to move to Austin for “rectification.” But with the cult’s implosion soon after, they have apparently changed their minds and sent him to NYC to organize because they’re desperate for members.
Because Samad has not yet been doxxed anywhere, unlike the rest of people on this page, and his group is actively being targeted by Zionists after a recent action of theirs, we are not comfortable publishing Samad’s legal name or photograph at this time, but we are reaching out to share relevant information with Palestinian activists and leftist organizations in the area. This is a temporary measure while CSSW4Palestine is under heat; in general we support identifying abusers, but we wanted to be extra cautious about handling this until we’ve spoken further with other local NYC activists about the situation. We stand with Palestine and are happy the Columbia social work students are organizing in support of the Palestinian people. We expect their activism to only be strengthened by kicking out the bad actors and organizing a new group without them.
We also want to note that, concurrent with Samad’s relocation to NYC, a new Gonzaloist group, the New York Revolutionary Youth (NYRY), which associates itself with the “Revolutionary Student Union” (RSU) surfaced, hosting a study group near Columbia University, and we question if he is involved in this too. The RSU was initially founded by former members of Tribune of the People and other activists after the cult’s collapse, and is affiliated with the Revolutionary Study Groups and with the ICL, the international Gonzaloist organization which continues to support Jared. We’re concerned that Samad may be behind the NYC branch of this group, or if not, very likely to attempt to work with it. Jared has lately begun courting the RSG and RSU, expressing support for them via his newspaper and in private conversation, overtures we hope these groups will reject. We reached out to the RSU to warn them of Samad’s presence and see if they could confirm he’s not organizing with them, but they did not respond. Since then, they have shared articles by ICL organizations condemning CR-CPUSA survivors who have spoken out against abuse as “snitches, traitors, and police collaborators,” and a person who appears to be a member of the NYC RSU branch, whether Samad or not, has sent death threats and homophobic slurs to us and other survivors who have spoken out. For these reasons, we have serious concerns about RSU, the NYC branch specifically, and encourage activists to investigate further before working with these groups.
In Austin, TX and online
The news blog “The Worker” is the new online front for the Jared Roark organization. When contacted, they deny knowing who Jared is, which is a ridiculous lie considering that they have now written an editorial piece defending the legacy of his organizing against “liquidators” without naming him or the CR-CPUSA. During our first read-through of this piece we noted several grammatical errors that are typical of Jared’s writing, and many other editorial pieces are written in his “voice.” In the past, occasionally pseudonyms were shared among members of their various blogs, but we believe articles written by “A. D. Nachalo” (a self-important reference to Marxist history, as his pseudonyms often are) are most likely to be primarily written by Jared. Some of Jared’s remaining followers have tried to claim he’s not organizing anymore, and current member “Matthew” or Taylor Chase has claimed that he has not seen Jared in “years.” While the latter may be true, the claim that Jared is completely uninvolved is an outright lie, an expression of their terrible and ill-informed operational security practices. We have confirmed through multiple sources that Jared is still active and in charge of the remaining clique of his followers.
Jared arrogantly considered himself the ideological leader of the US Maoist movement, although the sect he presided over was far from representative of all such organizing in the US, and he would never relinquish the reins of the CR-CPUSA. In the past, each time someone else took on the chairman position in his stead, it was merely because he was unable to lead on his own. For example, during the 2022 collapse he was in prison, and we believe this was convenient for him; he is able to blame Chris Ledesma and others for not leading properly in his absence and “causing” a complete breakdown of centralism. In fact, in the decimated condition his influence is in, he has likely only doubled down and centered all remaining members beneath himself as sole command, basically reiterating the “war communism” policy that enforced absolute obedience for the sake of “weathering poor subjective conditions and repression.”
We believe Jared likely initiated a rectification campaign for essentially all remaining members besides himself, a group of fewer than a dozen people. His narcissistic personality never accepts responsibility, so he probably blames the mass exodus as a result of underlings recruiting “the wrong people” and “not educating them properly,” leaving the potential for some former members to return if they are “repentant” but not making winning these former members over a measure of the group’s success necessarily. As for the anti-people crimes committed by him and under his protection, we believe he explained each of these away to each follower in a manipulative way as it was necessary. It’s also possible that Jared has reduced his interactions even with his most devoted followers as a poor security strategy, alienating himself even further from the people doing real work for him.
As for their activity, we believe they likely have continued to attempt the implementation of the “First Integration Plan,” a strategy Jared developed before he went to prison in 2021. Until the collapse, this strategy was seeing little success and we think Jared would believe this was due to inadequate leadership – now that he can lead it, he expects it to succeed. This plan regards workplace organizing through a cell structure that includes individuals organized under Jared and their coworkers who are not organized. At the same time, following a typical double standard, we’ve confirmed that top leaders among the clique have gone on to pursue higher education and professional work Jared would normally consider “petty bourgeois.”
Additionally in Austin, the cult has sent members to organize via workers’ strikes and protests for Palestine, and appears to be trying to develop a new “anti-imperialist” front organization by capitalizing on the mass movement for Palestinian liberation.
On Oct 7, Jared’s followers hosted a public study group under the title “Anti-imperialist Organizing Committee” at the Virginia L. Brown Recreation Center on the topic of an article put out in their newspaper. Posters for the event were spotted near the recreation center on Cameron Road.
There have been other sightings and interactions with various members that are detailed below.
Jared Roark
(aka “Dallas,” “A. D. Nachalo,” “Ed Dalton,” “Cathal/Kavga”)
Jared takes charge of writing most of the editorials, as he always has for various cult publications, now under the pen name “A. D. Nachalo.” Up until September 5, Jared could be seen in facebook photos working at a mechanic shop, Juke’s Auto. But the Daily Beast article recently published about the cult states that, when a reporter reached out, the business claims he no longer works there. His name and photo was still on the shop’s website for some time after this but has since been removed.
Chris Ledesma
(aka “David Martinez,” “Rio,” “Rico,” “Enrique”)
As of fall 2023, Chris, the leader of the cult while Jared was in prison, has been working as a 4th grade public school teacher at Bernice Hart elementary, just around the corner from Virginia L. Brown recreation center, where the cult has held study groups recently [photo above from Hart elementary’s twitter page]. In February or March 2023, a mural was photographed in Austin celebrating the formation of the International Communist League, published in their online journal. To anyone familiar with Chris’s art, it was immediately clear he designed the mural, and shows the ICL’s continued support of Jared’s group. Chris was spotted in October at a protest in support of Palestine, where he attempted to snitchjacket a former member
Liam Swanson
(aka “Lucas,” “Connor,” “S. Hausner”)
Liam Swanson, former Politburo (top leadership) member appears to have been put on writing duty, churning out articles under the name “Samuel Messidor.” Last year he was seen in public at a dining establishment with another cult member, “Samad.” He has also been active on Tinder in the past year, another interesting break from the cult’s former rules against social media and related apps, or another double standard for one of its top leaders.
Taylor Chase
(aka “Matthew”)
Taylor has been involved with Jared and his organizations since 2015 or 2016. Taylor was never very high ranking in the cult, but now has been doing the bulk of public facing activity for the cult in Austin. Though we will not identify every member, we now find it necessary to identify him because he is more able than the others to recruit new members to the cult, who will ultimately be mistreated and misled by the leaders.
For a handful of months after the collapse, Taylor attempted to retain some connection with former members while still secretly remaining in the cult. In October 2022, he went missing for at least one week. His vehicle was at his apartment, despite no signs of him being there, and he had told at least one person they would not be able to reach him for a period of time. Due to the length of his disappearance, we believe he traveled internationally to carry out business on behalf of the cult. It’s typical practice in the cult to not inform anyone of your travel plans and to not bring a phone if you are on assignment by leadership.
In April 2023, he was seen at an event where other activists were present and he was asked his stance on Jared. He refused and said he does not find the evidence against Jared to be convincing. This is in direct contradiction to his stance during the actual collapse, where he agreed with former members that the group was cult-like and that some anti-people crimes had taken place. He also claimed he had been organizing alone for the last year.
In August 2023, an activist contacted a nurses’ union interviewed by The Worker, and was able to confirm that Taylor and another confirmed cult member had conducted said interview.
In October 2023, Taylor was asked at a protest if he still worked with Jared, and he replied “I won’t ever stop organizing until I die, so if you want to stop me you’ll have to kill me.”
In November 2023, he was seen at a pro-Palestine protest, holding a typical CR-CPUSA-style banner featuring a Gonzaloist slogan with two unidentified people [pic below].
Conclusion
We hope that the information we’ve provided here can act as a launching pad for new, creative ways to combat Jared and his cult. The people in NYC and Austin who are yearning for radical, revolutionary ideas are all at risk at this moment. Some of them have been or will be recruited by this demented organization, and instead of getting to fight back against exploiters, they will be manipulated, isolated from friends, robbed, and possibly threatened with deadly violence. This happens every day in religious, financial, and other cults, but all of us who were involved with or knew of this particular cult are uniquely able to fight against it specifically, and so we’ve felt a responsibility to work on this front. We encourage you to get into contact with us if you have ideas, want to find others to develop ideas with, or have already begun some activity of your own towards this goal. We think it is most essential for this activity to happen face-to-face and through trusted relationships and organizations rather than online as much as possible, especially in Austin and NYC – young people, people in progressive organizations or other political parties need to be informed of Jared and his cult before they are approached by recruiters like Samad or Taylor.
Note: this page edited to clarify our choices of why we didn’t fully expose Samad at this time, and to move the original concluding essay on “snitch work” to its own post, here.
Ex- Red Guards and CR-CPUSA Hub 
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