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Man acquitted of mayhem and assault in Lake Forest stabbings

June 26, 2025

By PAUL ANDERSON | City News Service

A 29-year-old man was acquitted Wednesday on charges stemming from a stabbing in a Lake Forest home that injured a man and his mother four years ago.

Jose Daniel Zuniga Castro was acquitted of mayhem and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, all felonies, as well as a misdemeanor count of battery. Jurors, who deliberated for about a day, also rejected sentencing enhancements for inflicting great bodily injury on his accusers.

Zuniga Castro had been in custody since his arrest Feb. 23, 2021. Defense attorney Cameron Talley asked Orange County Superior Court Judge Patrick Donahue to release his client immediately, but the judge ordered him back to jail so deputies could process him out.

Sheriff deputies investigate the scene of a stabbing at a Lake Forest home on Tuesday, February 23, 2021. A man and a woman sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries, said Sgt. Dennis Breckner. A suspect, who didn't live there, was later taken into custody at a nearby retail center. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG) — Sheriff deputies investigate the scene of a stabbing at a Lake Forest home on Tuesday, February 23, 2021. A man and a woman sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries, said Sgt. Dennis Breckner. A suspect, who didn’t live there, was later taken into custody at a nearby retail center. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

“Hopefully by tonight they can release him,” Donahue said.

Talley said Zuniga Castro would buy marijuana from Stephen Trembley, and on the night Zuniga Castro was arrested, he apparently got the drug laced with methamphetamine and was acting erratically, Talley said.

Deputy District Attorney Shane Henry said Zuniga Castro was “screaming” in front of his home on the 100 block of Primerose in Lake Forest on Feb. 23, 2021, when his mother told him to come inside.

Zuniga Castro slapped her and fled in sweatpants to Trembley’s house on Rue Fontaine, claiming he had been kicked out, Henry said.

Trembley let him in the house, and from there, the facts of the case diverged.

Henry argued that Zuniga Castro was “agitated” and wanted to leave, but the door lock was sticky, prompting Zuniga Castro to get a knife from the kitchen and stab Trembley and his mother.

The mayhem charge, which would have carried a life sentence, stemmed from Trembley later losing his spleen in surgery for the knife wound.

But Talley argued that Trembley was dealing drugs out of the house with his mother’s knowledge, and they took him in quickly so he wouldn’t arouse the suspicions of neighbors and draw unwanted law enforcement attention to stolen goods in the house.

Talley said Trembley approached Zuniga Castro with a gun to try to cower him into submission, but Zuniga Castro felt threatened and acted in self-defense.

Talley pointed to a plea deal prosecutors cut with Trembley on the eve of trial as motivation for him to lie about what happened. Court records show Trembley failed to follow through on a DUI plea deal and, after admitting a probation violation, did not report to jail for a 150-day sentence on Jan. 7, 2022.

Trembley landed back in jail in May of this year and was sentenced to 180 days in jail. However, on June 16, he was given a plea deal for his immediate release to testify in the trial against Zuniga Castro.

Talley confronted Trembley with a long text message thread he had with a friend of Zuniga Castro’s that indicated he was willing to sell her drugs and get a ghost gun for her and warned of “consequences” if she told anyone.

“He didn’t know we had that text,” Talley told jurors in closing arguments.

When confronted with it, Trembley said, “That was altered,” according to Talley.

Prosecutors “cut a deal with this creep,” Talley said. “He’s supposed to be in jail until August.”

And if Trembley lied on the stand, then there would be no consequences, Talley argued.

“Honest to God, this is so bad,” Talley said. “This is wrong.”

Talley told jurors, “Those two alleged victims are liars.”

Man acquitted of mayhem and assault in Lake Forest stabbings Orange County Register

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Man acquitted of mayhem and assault in Lake Forest stabbings

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