A 34-year-old man was convicted in federal court Thursday of sending multiple threatening messages to an Orange County Superior Court judge who oversaw his child custody case.
Byrom Zuniga Sanchez, formerly of Laguna Niguel, was convicted of two counts of threats by interstate and foreign communication. Zuniga Sanchez, who is scheduled to be sentenced March 5, faces 10 years in federal prison.
Zuniga Sanchez represented himself in the trial. He asked U.S. District Judge Fred W. Slaughter if he could “accelerate” the hearing, but the judge told him he needed a report from probation officials prior to sentencing.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane Roldan told jurors, who deliberated for about an hour before reaching verdicts, in her closing argument, “Family Law is supposed to be a place of order and calm, but the defendant chose chaos and threats.”
Zuniga Sanchez could have appealed the result in his child custody case, but “instead, the defendant chose to threaten and scare” Orange County Superior Court Judge Sandy Leal.
Referring to a video he posted on social media, Roldan said, “He’s thinking of the most violent and grotesque ways to murder Judge Leal… he wanted her to be afraid… He also threatened Judge Leal in writing. … Those emails are this case.”
Roldan noted how Zuniga Sanchez read one of the more damning emails aloud to jurors that included him saying, “Sandy, it is time to die. I am more committed to murdering you than to being present as a father.”
Roldan dismissed Zuniga Sanchez’s claims in his testimony, insisting that he was joking.
She argued that on one hand, he tried to evoke sympathy as a father who lost his custody case, but was also engaging in “morbid comedy. … It can’t be both. But you know it’s neither.”
Zuniga Sanchez’s threats forced Orange County sheriff’s deputies to set up a command center and boost patrols in the Lamoreaux Justice Center on Oct. 13, 2023, Roland said. Some employees stayed home, but Leal testified she didn’t want one man to derail the administration of justice so she reported to work that day, Roldan said.
Leal presided over Zuniga Sanchez’s custody case in 2021, and the threats started pouring in to her court’s email account and from Instagram in mid-2023, Roldan said.
The threats “escalated” from a demand for Leal to resign to pledges of violence, Roldan argued.
Roldan pointed to a music video by rapper-singer Ashnikko that Zuniga Sanchez sent to Leal’s email account and his choice to repeatedly replay it for jurors in the trial. The defendant played it twice during his closing arguments.
“Were you watching defendant’s face as he showed you that video,” Roldan asked jurors. “He was enjoying it. It was grotesque. It was misogynistic. It was not a joke.”
When Zuniga Sanchez read one of his lengthy emails aloud during testimony he was at times animated and raised his voice, Roldan said.
“He read this aloud to you. … Did it sound like a joke?” Roldan said. “Or did it sound like he enjoyed it. As he got louder and louder and got more into it — it was frightening.”
A video he posted Oct. 5, 2023 “says it all, his obsession,” Roldan said.
“She didn’t resign” as he demanded, the prosecutor argued. “So he’s going to fire her.”
She also ridiculed his assertion in his opening statement in which he compared himself to Lassie or Scooby Doo.
“He said he was a friendly dog raising issues of his son’s case,” Roldan said. “I don’t remember that episode. It is offensive and vile that he says that to you. It is a lie.”
She played a portion of the clip for jurors in which the defendant compared himself to a “dangerous dog.”
Zuniga Sanchez rambled through a 45-minute closing argument that drew numerous objections and admonishment from Slaughter to not mention the details of his family law case as he ordered before trial or to drift into topics not in evidence.
Zuniga Sanchez started his closing argument with an “algebraic joke” and then took off a jail shirt while saying, “You can have that back. The government knows I am innocent.”
“Two pounds, four ounces, 111 days in the ICU. That’s my autistic son’s beginning,” Zuniga Sanchez said.
He excused his salty language in his emails and videos, saying, “That is a traumatized individual going through it.”
Zuniga Sanchez mocked Leal’s testimony that she feared for her children. “Then woo woo, my kids,” he said. “That’s your argument. You got kids. What about the safety of my children? … I’ve missed five birthdays because of this.”
Zuniga Sanchez argued he was no threat because he had been denied re-entry into the United States from Mexico in June 2023. He said his pet had died and he was so grief-stricken he let his work permit expire and wasn’t allowed to renew it from Mexico.
Zuniga Sanchez argued that the emails and posts were dwarfed by the amount of “comedy sits” and content he created during that time.
Zuniga Sanchez cursed and shouted at times during his closing argument and demanded a sidebar with the judge so he could make his case to read from a book that he said he had read aloud to inmates while in custody, but the judge denied it.
He hinted that his custody case was based on his immigration status. He claimed he was earning $600,000 annually so he had no motive to “flee to Mexico and kidnap my son.”
Zuniga Sanchez said he was a Mexican national like his parents, who brought him to the U.S. when he was 18 months old.
“I don’t want to be in this country anymore,” he said. “My relationship with this country is very toxic. It is an abusive relationship. You take my son. I have to walk on egg shells. I am tired of being afraid every time I see a police man. We all turn into maggots when we die, then so what? This is not a case of threats. Sandy Leal’s character flaws and deceptive nature is the threat … to my son, to his future.”
He said after his son was born he had to go back to work right away because he was “afraid to tell my employer I was undocumented and apply for EDD.”