{"id":79422,"date":"2025-12-03T06:45:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T06:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/79422\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T06:45:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T06:45:06","slug":"trial-begins-for-man-accused-of-threatening-oc-judge-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/79422\/","title":{"rendered":"Trial begins for man accused of threatening OC judge \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

By PAUL ANDERSON<\/p>\n

SANTA ANA \u2014 An Orange County sheriff\u2019s sergeant testified Tuesday an Orange County Superior Court judge \u201chad the look of fear on her face\u201d as she read emails sent to the courts threatening to shoot up the Family Law courthouse Oct. 13, 2023.<\/p>\n

Byrom Zuniga Sanchez<\/a>, 33, formerly of Laguna Niguel, is on trial for two counts of threats by interstate and foreign communication for allegedly sending the threats after a contentious custody dispute in Family Law court over his then-5-year-old son.<\/p>\n

Sheriff\u2019s Sgt. Gene Minko testified about the reaction the Orange County Superior Court judge had when she was shown five emails sent to her court.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had the look of fear on her face,\u201d Minko testified. \u201cOverall, she was afraid. She was worried about her three children\u2026 She was afraid (the defendant) would abduct one if not all three children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minko said he contacted the principals at all three schools to go over the pick-up and drop-off protocols and to bar Zuniga Sanchez from having any contact with the students.<\/p>\n

Sheriff\u2019s deputies also did \u201cWhat had never been done before\u201d and stepped up patrols at the Lamoreaux Justice Center in Orange, where most Family Law disputes are heard.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt this threat was serious and concerning,\u201d Minko said.<\/p>\n

The sheriff\u2019s department established an \u201cundercover apprehension team\u201d at the courthouse and alerted law enforcement at the border and on the highways to be on the lookout for Zuniga Sanchez, who they suspected was in Tijuana at the time, Minko said.<\/p>\n

Court employees were given the option to stay home on Oct. 13, 2023, but the threatened judge reported for work as usual, Minko said.<\/p>\n

In a social media post, Zuniga Sanchez said, \u201cI am the gorilla and I will murder everything responsible for traumatizing my son. (Expletive) you and your abuse of laws, dirty whore,\u201d Minko testified.<\/p>\n

In one of the posts, Zuniga Sanchez cited the 1st Amendment, and in another cited the 2nd Amendment regarding gun rights, Minko said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe uses these words to remind us he\u2019s serious,\u201d Minko said.<\/p>\n

Zuniga Sanchez also boasted that there\u2019s \u201cabsolutely nothing the OCSD can do to prevent, prepare nor impede\u201d a mass shooting<\/a>, Minko said, adding that it showed how the defendant felt \u201cinvincible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defendant made no secret of who was making the threats, Minko said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no ambiguity at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The defendant, who is representing himself legally in the trial with a stand-by attorney, was accused of sending five emails to the account for the judge. In one of the emails the subject is, \u201cIt is time you die,\u201d according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

Minko said his reaction to that email was, \u201cscared, concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n

In one of the emails, he allegedly wrote, \u201cYou\u2019re already dead. The remainder of my life will be dedicated to assassinating judges, attorneys, and a police station\u2019s entire shift staff,\u201d according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

Zuniga was subjected to multiple domestic violence protective orders, pending arrest warrants and a workplace violence order, according to prosecutors. He also had multiple warrants in Orange County for state criminal offenses, including leading police on a chase, invasion of privacy, violating a court order and criminal threats, according to court records.<\/p>\n

Two of the emails were sent May 16, 2023, and the others were sent on June 20, 2023, July 2, 2023, and July 24, 2023, according to prosecutors. But authorities were not aware of them until September 26, 2023.<\/p>\n

When Minko asked the threatened judge about Zuniga Sanchez she \u201crecalled him clearly, vividly, without hesitating.\u201d<\/p>\n

While questioning Minko, Zuniga Sanchez referred to the social media posts as \u201cto some degree trolling.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he asked Minko if he took the posts seriously, the sergeant said, \u201cabsolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Referring to a portion of the post that indicated he wanted to execute the mass shooting earlier, Minko said that showed \u201che was actually planning\u201d it. \u201cHe was not ready yet, but he was planning,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Testimony is scheduled to continue Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By PAUL ANDERSON SANTA ANA \u2014 An Orange County sheriff\u2019s sergeant testified Tuesday an Orange County Superior Court…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,7,723,138,14802,45621,100,171,611,338,136],"class_list":["post-79422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-california","tag-crime","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-criminal-threats","tag-laguna-niguel","tag-news","tag-orange","tag-orange-county","tag-santa-ana","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}