The city’s more than 25-year-old parade marched down Crown Valley Parkway Saturday morning, Dec. 13, jingling all the way.

With floats and marching bands, community groups and fancy cars, the event has all the trappings of a traditional parade, wrapped up in holiday ribbon with Santa Claus overseeing the merriment.

SANTA ANA — An Orange County sheriff’s sergeant testified Tuesday an Orange County Superior Court judge “had the look of fear on her face” as she read emails sent to the courts threatening to shoot up the Family Law courthouse Oct. 13, 2023.

Byrom Zuniga Sanchez, 33, formerly of Laguna Niguel, is on trial in federal court in Santa Ana 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.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Gene Minko testified about the reaction the Orange County Superior Court judge had when she was shown five emails sent to her court.

“She had the look of fear on her face,” Minko testified. “Overall, she was afraid. She was worried about her three children… She was afraid (the defendant) would abduct one if not all three children.”

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.

Sheriff’s deputies also did “What had never been done before” and stepped up patrols at the Lamoreaux Justice Center in Orange, where most Family Law disputes are heard.

“I felt this threat was serious and concerning,” Minko said.

The sheriff’s department established an “undercover apprehension team” 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.

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

In one of the posts, Zuniga Sanchez cited the First Amendment, and in another cited the Second Amendment regarding gun rights, Minko said.

“He uses these words to remind us he’s serious,” Minko said.

Zuniga Sanchez also boasted that there’s “absolutely nothing the OCSD can do to prevent, prepare nor impede” a mass shooting, Minko said, adding that it showed how the defendant felt “invincible.”

The defendant made no secret of who was making the threats, Minko said.

“There’s no ambiguity at all,” he said.

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, “It is time you die,” according to prosecutors.

Minko said his reaction to that email was, “scared, concerned.”

In one of the emails, he allegedly wrote, “You’re already dead. The remainder of my life will be dedicated to assassinating judges, attorneys, and a police station’s entire shift staff,” according to prosecutors.

Zuniga Sanchez 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.

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.

When Minko asked the threatened judge about Zuniga Sanchez, she “recalled him clearly, vividly, without hesitating.”

While questioning Minko, Zuniga Sanchez referred to the social media posts as “to some degree trolling.”

When he asked Minko if he took the posts seriously, the sergeant said, “absolutely.”

Referring to a portion of the post that indicated he wanted to execute the mass shooting earlier, Minko said that showed “he was actually planning” it. “He was not ready yet, but he was planning,” he added.

On Wednesday, Zuniga Sanchez testified that the emails and social media postings were meant to be jokes.

At the time he was accused of sending the threats in mid-2023, he said: “The majority of my day was working on comedy. I was working on comedy skits for 10 or 20 different characters.”

The elliptical ramblings in his testimony revolved around explaining the violent and crude words in his messages to the judge’s courtroom. He played videos of himself insulting her with curses as well as a music video he sent to the judge that he said he found “hilarious.”

He asked himself if he believed that he was “genuinely” engaged in “lawful exercising of his First Amendment rights,” and he replied, “Yes… I’m not an attorney, but to the best of my knowledge I was within my First Amendment rights.”

In the two years after he lost the custody case, Zuniga Sanchez said he was on a “mission to wage war against corruption in Family Court.”

He said Family Court can do good and could “have spared me an awful childhood,” but he felt that it had failed him in his custody battle.

Zuniga Sanchez also referred to the Second Amendment in his messages because, “We have the right to bear arms over a tyrannical government… I guess it means you have the right to stop the courts from abducting someone’s child.”

Zuniga Sanchez said that a July email asking if Friday the 13th in October “works for you” for an active shooter attack was not serious.

“I mean, really, July to October? That gives so much time for people to find me,” he said. “It’s not rational to consider this as serious.”

He also sought to explain an alleged threat in which he refers to himself as a gorilla, saying that “we area really close to 90% of the DNA of gorillas.”

He said in the message, “I am the gorilla and I will murder everything responsible for traumatizing my son. (Expletive) you and your abuse of laws, dirty whore.”

“It doesn’t say every one,” Zuniga Sanchez testified. “It says every thing.”

Under cross-examination from a prosecutor, Zuniga Sanchez denied that any of his emails contained threats. And when asked if he wrote the emails, he skirted around the question, pointing out that they had redactions and he could not claim full authorship.

“There’s not a single threat communicated,” he said. “There is not a single threat in here.”

Closing arguments are expected Thursday afternoon.