Peo v. Zuniga

── Peo v. Zuniga ── Court: Colorado Court of Appeals Date: April 09, 2026 Category: General 22CA0760 Peo v Zuniga 04-09-2026 COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS Court of Appeals No. 22CA0760 Jefferson County District Court No. 20CR3724 Honorable Randall C. Arp, Judge The People of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Sonny Ray Zuniga, Defendant-Appellant. JUDGMENT AFFIRMED IN PART AND REVERSED IN PART, AND CASE REMANDED WITH DIRECTIONS Division I Opinion by JUDGE J. JONES Lum and Meirink, JJ., concur NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced April 9, 2026 Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Grant R. Fevurly, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee Megan A. Ring, Colorado State Public Defender, Kamela Maktabi, Deputy State Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant ¶1 Defendant, Sonny Ray Zuniga, appeals the district court’s judgment of conviction entered on a jury verdict finding him guilty of sexual assault of a child by one in a position of trust (pattern of abuse) and aggravated incest. He also appeals the court’s sexually violent predator (SVP) designation. We conclude that the court incorrectly designated Zuniga an SVP. We therefore vacate that portion of the sentence and remand for correction of the mittimus. In all other respects, we affirm. I. Background ¶2 A.Z., the victim in this case, is Zuniga’s daughter. A.Z. didn’t have much contact with Zuniga during the first few years of her life because he was either incarcerated or living in a halfway house. But after his release, Zuniga fought for — and won — custody of A.Z. and her brother. A.Z., her brother, and her stepsister lived with Zuniga and A.Z.’s stepmother in a house in Lakewood, Colorado. ¶3 A.Z. later testified that, before Zuniga had full custody of her, he began sexually abusing her when she was five or six years old. Zuniga would call A.Z. into his bedroom in the Lakewood house and lock the door. Zuniga and A.Z. would then lie on the bed, and 1  Zuniga would pull down A.Z.’s pants and underwear. He would then wet his fingers and touch A.Z.’s “private parts.” A few times, Zuniga made A.Z. touch his “private parts.” Zuniga told A.Z. not to tell anyone about the interactions. These incidents stopped once A.Z. told Zuniga that she didn’t want to go into the room with him. ¶4 A few years after the abuse ended, Zuniga left the Lakewood house.1 A.Z. and her siblings remained at the Lakewood house and were cared for by her stepmother. But after her stepmother died in 2019, A.Z. went to live with her aunt — C.M. — and C.M.’s children, including C.M.’s stepdaughter, R.S. Soon after moving in, A.Z. told R.S. that Zuniga had sexually assaulted her. A.Z. told R.S. not to tell anybody.2 1 Zuniga left because he was convicted in 2017 of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust and subsequently incarcerated; A.Z.’s stepsister was the victim. The jurors in this case didn’t learn about this previous conviction, but they did learn that A.Z. participated in a 2017 forensic interview. The interview related to the 2017 conviction. During that interview, A.Z. said that Zuniga never touched her inappropriately. However, A.Z. testified in this case that she lied during that interview because Zuniga had told her to. We refer to this forensic interview as the “2017 forensic interview.” 2 It wasn’t until 2021 that R.S. told the social services investigator that she knew about the assaults. 2 ¶5 In 2020, A.Z. told C.M. at a backyard gathering that Zuniga had sexually assaulted her. C.M. notified social services. A.Z. then participated in a forensic interview in which she described Zuniga’s sexual assaults in detail.3 ¶6 Zuniga was charged w