A man who was found guilty of terrorizing related charges in a North Dakota courtroom choose death over going to prison.

Valley News Live identifies the individual as 55-year-old Jeffrey Ferris. He was on trial for an April 2020 incident on the Turtle Mountian Indian Reservation.

Court records allege he drove a jeep toward several children and nearly hit them.

Those documents also say Ferris assaulted a person with a handgun.

Ferris faced charges of assault with a deadly weapon, reckless endangerment, terrorizing, and using a firearm in a violent felony.

According to KVRR the man committed suicide moments after he was found guilty.

He cut himself in the throat inside the federal courthouse in Fargo in front of the judge and courtroom staffers and other witnesses, North Dakota US Marshal Dallas Carlson said.

“He produced an edge weapon and cut his throat” Carlson told KVRR.

Another witness said he “turned around and you could see the inside of his neck. He had slit his neck with some object.”

The jury was not inside the courtroom at the time when he committed the act.

US Marshals and the FBI are investigating the man’s death.