Chiropractor Calls Colleague Slain in Court ‘a Little Irrational for Quite a While’

Every morning at 5:15, Jeremey A. Sigmond would leave his house dressed in a bulletproof vest and crash helmet, neighbors said Thursday of the man killed in a Van Nuys courtroom shoot-out the day before.

“We always wondered where he was going,” said a neighbor who asked that her name be withheld. He would return a few hours later, sometimes playing in the yard with his two dogs before going inside.

A few times a month, the neighbor said, the former chiropractor would drive away in his older model Cougar dressed in Army fatigues and accompanied by others in similar gear. Friends say he was probably bound for a shooting range in Angeles National Forest, where he engaged in “quick-draw” contests with his police officer buddies and taught gun-safety classes.

“He was a little guy who liked big guns, big cars and hanging around with big boys, doing manly things and wearing Rambo clothes,” said Deputy Atty. Gen. Earl Robert Plowman.

Held Gun on Prosecutor

On Wednesday, Sigmond, a slight, balding man of 35, was shot to death after entering a crowded Van Nuys courtroom and holding a gun to the head of Deputy City Atty. Jessica Perrin Silvers, who successfully prosecuted him in a misdemeanor trial that ended the day before.

Neighbors, associates and others who dealt with Sigmond described him Thursday as a man with a small circle of friends and a fascination with guns, particularly combat rifles.

Sigmond once had a gun collection worth an estimated $200,000, but much of it was sold to pay his legal fees, said Norman Edell, a friend and one of two attorneys who represented Sigmond in hearings that led to the revocation of his chiropractor’s license in February.

Others also described Sigmond as an excitable man with a temper that flared often. “He used to get real crazy, real upset about things, but then he’d calm down,” said Marcia Brewer, another of Sigmond’s attorneys.

A psychiatrist who examined him as part of the license revocation proceedings told the attorney general’s office that Sigmond seemed unlikely to harm anyone, said Plowman, who represented the state in the license hearings.

Three other psychiatrists who examined him as part of the licensing proceedings agreed that Sigmond did not appear dangerous, but said he had paranoid tendencies, Plowman said.

Sigmond also claimed to have been the target of bullets.

He told authorities that someone tried to shoot him once when he was inside his house. Another time, while Sigmond was driving in his Cougar, someone had tried to run him off the road, Edell said.

Sigmond believed he was wanted dead by Mafia hit men and officials from the governor’s office, state attorney general’s office and the state Board of Chiropractic Examiners, Edell said.

The board, acting on reports that he appeared mentally ill, held hearings to revoke his license in 1985. The board allowed him to continue practicing on the conditions that he seek psychiatric care and not own guns. His license was revoked after he was arrested for carrying loaded guns in his car. His criminal trial on those charges ended Tuesday.

In the various proceedings against him, Sigmond often appeared angry, ranted and threatened to kill himself, Plowman said. Some of his comments were construed as veiled threats to state officials. He even claimed that Deputy Atty. Gen. Linda Vogel had murdered three of his colleagues. He tried to subpoena her to his home on a Saturday “to indict” her, Vogel said.

Agitated, Sobbing

At his license revocation hearing, Plowman said, Sigmond served as his own attorney, often speaking in a high-pitched, hysterical voice and growing so agitated that he paced around the courtroom, began sobbing and ran out of the building.

“If he had stayed in the room, I was going to have him handcuffed and taken off for involuntary evaluation,” Plowman said.

As his attorneys, Edell and Brewer often saw a different side of Sigmond. They described him as a quiet, personable man who was very close to his parents and who never married.

Sigmond had shared a Culver City chiropractic office with his father, Sandor Sigmond, a survivor of Nazi concentration camps in World War II, Vogel said. The elder Sigmond could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Donald Cannon, a good friend and fellow chiropractor, said that Sigmond was beaten down by the bureaucracy.

He said Sigmond had 17 tapes indicating that his life was being threatened by members of the California Chiropractic Assn. who wanted to get even with him for a lawsuit he filed against them. Cannon said Sigmond intentionally got arrested after the chase so he could bring the tapes to court and play them to a jury.

“This little guy had the courage of an eagle,” Cannon said, but added that “Jeremey’s been a little irrational for quite a while.” When Cannon spoke with Sigmond on Monday night, Sigmond told him he was upset that Judge Michael B. Harwin would not let him present the tapes as evidence in his Municipal Court trial.

In the midst of the conversation, Cannon said, “all of a sudden he’d start flying off the handle . . . and he would almost be hollering it upset him so much. “