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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Zuniga Sanchez represented himself in the trial. He asked U.S. District Judge Fred W. Slaughter if he could \u201caccelerate\u201d the hearing, but the judge told him he needed a report from probation officials prior to sentencing.<\/p>\n
Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane Roldan told jurors, who deliberated for about an hour before reaching verdicts, in her closing argument, \u201cFamily Law is supposed to be a place of order and calm, but the defendant chose chaos and threats.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zuniga Sanchez could have appealed the result in his child custody case, but \u201cinstead, the defendant chose to threaten and scare\u201d Orange County Superior Court Judge Sandy Leal.<\/p>\n
Referring to a video he posted on social media, Roldan said, \u201cHe\u2019s thinking of the most violent and grotesque ways to murder Judge Leal\u2026 he wanted her to be afraid\u2026 He also threatened Judge Leal in writing. \u2026 Those emails are this case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roldan noted how Zuniga Sanchez read one of the more damning emails aloud to jurors that included him saying, \u201cSandy, it is time to die. I am more committed to murdering you than to being present as a father.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roldan dismissed Zuniga Sanchez\u2019s claims in his testimony, insisting that he was joking.<\/p>\n
She argued that on one hand, he tried to evoke sympathy as a father who lost his custody case, but was also engaging in \u201cmorbid comedy. \u2026 It can\u2019t be both. But you know it\u2019s neither.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zuniga Sanchez\u2019s threats forced Orange County sheriff\u2019s 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\u2019t want one man to derail the administration of justice so she reported to work that day, Roldan said.<\/p>\n
Leal presided over Zuniga Sanchez\u2019s custody case in 2021, and the threats started pouring in to her court\u2019s email account and from Instagram in mid-2023, Roldan said.<\/p>\n
The threats \u201cescalated\u201d from a demand for Leal to resign to pledges of violence, Roldan argued.<\/p>\n
Roldan pointed to a music video by rapper-singer Ashnikko that Zuniga Sanchez sent to Leal\u2019s email account and his choice to repeatedly replay it for jurors in the trial. The defendant played it twice during his closing arguments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWere you watching defendant\u2019s face as he showed you that video,\u201d Roldan asked jurors. \u201cHe was enjoying it. It was grotesque. It was misogynistic. It was not a joke.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Zuniga Sanchez read one of his lengthy emails aloud during testimony he was at times animated and raised his voice, Roldan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe read this aloud to you. \u2026 Did it sound like a joke?\u201d Roldan said. \u201cOr did it sound like he enjoyed it. As he got louder and louder and got more into it \u2014 it was frightening.\u201d<\/p>\n
A video he posted Oct. 5, 2023 \u201csays it all, his obsession,\u201d Roldan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe didn\u2019t resign\u201d as he demanded, the prosecutor argued. \u201cSo he\u2019s going to fire her.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also ridiculed his assertion in his opening statement in which he compared himself to Lassie or Scooby Doo.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said he was a friendly dog raising issues of his son\u2019s case,\u201d Roldan said. \u201cI don\u2019t remember that episode. It is offensive and vile that he says that to you. It is a lie.\u201d<\/p>\n
She played a portion of the clip for jurors in which the defendant compared himself to a \u201cdangerous dog.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Zuniga Sanchez started his closing argument with an \u201calgebraic joke\u201d and then took off a jail shirt while saying, \u201cYou can have that back. The government knows I am innocent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo pounds, four ounces, 111 days in the ICU. That\u2019s my autistic son\u2019s beginning,\u201d Zuniga Sanchez said.<\/p>\n
He excused his salty language in his emails and videos, saying, \u201cThat is a traumatized individual going through it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zuniga Sanchez mocked Leal\u2019s testimony that she feared for her children. \u201cThen woo woo, my kids,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s your argument. You got kids. What about the safety of my children? \u2026 I\u2019ve missed five birthdays because of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019t allowed to renew it from Mexico.<\/p>\n
Zuniga Sanchez argued that the emails and posts were dwarfed by the amount of \u201ccomedy sits\u201d and content he created during that time.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cflee to Mexico and kidnap my son.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zuniga Sanchez said he was a Mexican national like his parents, who brought him to the U.S. when he was 18 months old.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to be in this country anymore,\u201d he said. \u201cMy 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\u2019s character flaws and deceptive nature is the threat \u2026 to my son, to his future.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said after his son was born he had to go back to work right away because he was \u201cafraid to tell my employer I was undocumented and apply for EDD.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 34-year-old man was convicted in federal court Thursday of sending multiple threatening messages to an Orange County…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,5685,16047,40579,30853],"class_list":["post-85134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-convicted","tag-judge","tag-sending","tag-threats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85134","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=85134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}