A man bent on revenge after being convicted of reckless driving and weapons violations died in a courtroom gunfight after threatening to kill his prosecutor and critically wounding a bailiff, authorities said. Jeremey Sigmond, 35, a decertified chiropractor from Sepulveda, returned Wednesday to Los Angeles Municipal Court where he was convicted the day before, and accosted his prosecutor, Jessica Perrin Silvers, 49, threatening to kill her. ``He's just, in layman's terms, violently crazy, and I knew it,'' the prosecutor said. ``So when I heard him talking in his delusional voice and saying I should come with him I just thought there's no way I'm going to do that.'' A bailiff drew a gun on Sigmond. Sigmond threatened to shoot Ms. Silvers and the bailiff dropped the weapon. But Ms. Silvers broke away and Deputy Marshal Cliff Wofford burst into the room and shot Sigmond. Wofford, 30, of Palmdale, was wounded in the abdomen in the gunbattle and was in critical condition after surgery to repair damage to his liver, said Betty Neilson, spokeswoman for St. Joseph's Medical Center in Burbank. Police searched Sigmond's suburban home Wednesday for firearms or explosives, but found only empty gun vaults. A neighbor, Maurice Netter, said Sigmond had told him he was part of a federal witness protection program and living under an assumed name. Sigmond was convicted Tuesday of four misdemeanors _ reckless driving, evading police, carrying a loaded weapon and carrying a concealed weapon _ stemming from an Oct. 22 high-speed chase. He testified at his trial that he thought he was being chased by the Mafia instead of the California Highway Patrol. He claimed the Mafia was harassing him in retaliation for a lawsuit he filed against the Board of Chiropractors, alleging price-fixing and restraint of trade. He had been appealing the revocation of his state license to practice as a chiropractor. When arrested, Sigmond was wearing two bullet-proof vests and a crash helmet and carrying a loaded .38-caliber revolver. He was wearing a bullet-proof vest Wednesday, said police Lt. Charles Massey. Sigmond's attorney, Norman Edell, described his client as an Air Force veteran who held a second-degree black belt in karate and was a collector of guns, most of which he recently had sold. ``He was very distraught because the case meant a lot to him. He didn't take it passively but there was no indication of this,'' he said. At his sentencing, which was scheduled for May, Sigmond could have been ordered imprisoned up to 18 months. The courthouse is in the San Fernando Valley community of Van Nuys, about 15 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
