and treating Alzheimer’s and children with spinal injuries. Lion’s mane can be found growing locally, though Castro didn’t know that at the time. He ordered some of the mush- rooms from China and began to grow them in his closet at home. His father read the same literature and was encouraged. Using ethanol, Castro created a tincture for his father to try taking three times a day. About six months later, Castro’s dad started regaining sensation in his toes and face. “Then he regained mobility on the whole right side of his body, and his memory and his speech improved,” he added. It’s no clin- ical trial, but Castro believes his father’s recovery can be attributed to the Lion’s mane. Mushrooms had already been a subject of interest for Castro. His father’s experi- ence turned them into a calling. He studied them, foraged for them in the nearby Santa Rita and Santa Catalina mountains and began to make tinctures as supplements for various ailments. Family and friends began requesting tinctures of their own. What was first a hobby eventually grew into Desert Alchemist, which he formed around 2017. The mushroom production outgrew his closet and then a garage before moving to a commercial kitchen. He would also go foraging, which was best in the late summer, after the monsoons. He posted videos and photos of his finds to Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. In his videos, his passion for mushrooms is infectious, and his vast knowledge of the subject is enlight- ening for the uninitiated. In one Instagram post from a foray in the White Mountains near Show Low, he displays a jumbo puff ball (Calvatia booniana), which looks vaguely testicular. Wearing his trademark chapeau, a Romanian-made cap crafted from felt-like mushrooms, he explains that when the puff balls are young, you can slice them up and make pizza out of them, though he warns they have little taste, and are known as the “tofu of mushrooms.” In another, he and a fellow enthusiast sit on a log in the drizzling rain, listening to the unworldly sounds created by a small device called a PlantWave, which supposedly converts the electrical pulses from plants into Theremin-like music. In this instance, the pair have it hooked up to a Ganoderma fallax, a flat brown mushroom protruding from a tree stump. As his following grew, people began asking to forage with him. Eventually he was shepherding groups of 20 or more people, charging $30 a head. He schooled them on “ethical harvesting” — that is, taking only what they plan to use — and warned them of the danger of toxic mush- rooms. Castro has since traveled all over Arizona and all over the U.S., from New York to Texas and New Mexico and up and down the West Coast, foraging for fungi, speaking at conferences and communing with fellow mushroom enthusiasts. He started a campaign, still unfulfilled, to make the white king bolete, a pale mushroom with a thick stem and cap, Arizona’s official state mushroom. “We share 50% of our DNA with mush- rooms,” Castro said. “They breathe oxygen like we do. And they exhale CO2. They’re afflicted by the same pathogens that we suffer from — a lot of the same viruses, a lot of the same bacteria and things like that. And mushrooms in the wild, they’re exposed to all these pathogens. They make a lot of metabolites to defend themselves.” He can’t find many mushrooms in prison, where he works the kitchen and kills time by playing chess, reading and watching TV. The worst part is being penned in. “I get really excited when I go outside to go to the rec yard,” he said. “There’s some plants out there that I’ve been watering. I get excited about seeing the flowers.” CLERICAL SNAFU Castro landed behind bars because of a box he checked on a federal form. For that, the federal government sent six men with guns and bulletproof “POLICE” vests to arrest him on May 31. He’s not sure which agency they represented, but they jerked him from his car at gunpoint as he and Omick were returning home from breakfast with Castro’s grandmother, who had just turned 90. The grand jury indictment on file with the federal court accuses Castro of having “knowingly made a false certification on Form N-400,” which is the naturalization application. The indictment says he answered “no” on the form to the question “Have you ever sold or smuggled controlled substances, illegal drugs or narcotics?” Traffic and parking tickets aside, Castro’s criminal record shows no convic- tions during his adult years, leaving specu- lation by some friends that his situation may involve an arrest that took place when he was a minor. Federal instructions for Form N-400 state that the question mentioned above includes “any offenses that happened before you reached 18.” Still, the guide does not threaten arrest — it simply says that if the applicant answers incorrectly, he or she “may be denied naturalization.” Though Castro would be eligible for bail in criminal court, his attorney, with the agreement of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, has delayed a detention hearing again and again. The last hearing in the case took place at Tucson’s federal courthouse in early September, where Castro appeared in chains and an orange jumpsuit before U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria S. Aguilera. After 10 minutes, his detention hearing was continued for the fifth time. A jury trial is currently set for Feb. 18, 2026. Castro’s attorney, Matthew Green, declined to comment on his client’s case, and Castro steered clear of that subject in his calls with New Times. Though frustrating, this legal defense strategy makes perfect sense to Christine Biederman, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney who practices criminal and immigration law in Dallas. (Before becoming a U.S. Attorney, Biederman wrote for New Times’ sister paper, the Dallas Observer.) In private practice, Biederman has had some successes in similar immigration-related cases, despite the Trump regime’s anti- immigrant agenda. She said it’s wise to fight the federal case first, because a win there would weaken any case for removal. “Even if he was granted bail in the federal system, he’d be immediately transferred into ICE custody, where bond is discretionary,” she said. “And once he’s there, ICE would, in all probability, try to revoke his green card and have him removed on the pendency of the federal charges.” A criminal conviction in the trial could also result in his eventual removal and a bar from reentering the country. But, with the caveat that she had not seen the evidence against Castro, Biederman wagered that he had a good chance of beating the rap. The government would have to prove him guilty to a jury of his peers beyond a reasonable doubt. Prosecutors would also have to demon- strate that Castro lied on the form “know- ingly, intentionally and not just by some accident or mistake,” she said. If Castro ended up in immigration court — whose judges are appointed by the U.S. Attorney General, and serve at the whim of the executive branch — federal authorities would have to prove that Castro made a false statement under oath with the knowing intent to gain an immigration benefit. That presumably might be easier if Castro were convicted, which makes it all the more important to win the criminal case. Biederman said she’d rarely seen a charge so picayune. Castro, she said, “doesn’t exactly look like Public Enemy No. 1.” “I used to be a federal prosecutor,” she said, “and even in the Eastern District of Texas, which is not the busiest district in Texas, we didn’t bring these cases back then for lying on an application for naturalization.” In any case, under a new rule promul- gated by the Trump administration and recently upheld by the Board of Immigration Appeals, immigration detainees are routinely denied bond. Even if he got out pending trial now, ICE would snap him up and he’d go back in some- where else. If Castro wants to stay in the U.S., he must hold fast and fight. TARGETED? Among Castro’s friends and admirers, a nagging question lingers: Why was Castro targeted, especially over something so minor? Is it possible that the feds went after him because of his prominence in the Tucson area, because he’s Latino and because he deals in mushrooms, even if they’re the legal kind? Casiana Omick holds up a FaceTime call with Hernan Castro, who has been in federal prison awaiting trial since late May. (Stephen Lemons) Hernan Castro on a mushroom foraging expedition. (Hernan Castro) >> p 16
