The FBI is now investigating a possible connection between the murder of a men’s rights lawyer in San Bernardino County and the attack on a U.S. District Judge’s family in New Jersey. At the center of the bizarre case is an “anti-feminist” lawyer found dead earlier this week.
On Sunday, a gunman disguised in a FedEx uniform knocked on the door of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas’s home in North Brunswick, New Jersey. Salas’ son, 20-year-old Daniel Anderl, was shot and killed when he opened the door, and her husband, defense attorney Mark Anderl, was injured. Salas was in the basement at the time and wasn’t harmed.
The prime suspect in the shooting is Roy Den Hollander, the New York Times reports. Den Hollander was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in a car in upstate New York, about two hours from Salas’ home. In that car, investigators found a package addressed to Salas and a photo of another judge, New York State Chief Judge Janet M. DiFore.
On the afternoon of Saturday, July 11, Marc Angelucci, a men’s rights attorney and vice president of the National Coalition For Men (NCFM), was shot and killed at the door of his Crestline home. Angelucci was responsive when deputies arrived but died at the scene, according to the Desert Sun. A law enforcement source told CNN the gunman was believed to be wearing a delivery uniform at the time of the attack.
In addition to the similar M.O., both victims had a history with Den Hollander.
Den Hollander was a so-called “anti-feminist” lawyer who rose to notoriety due to his numerous lawsuits in the name of men’s rights, arguing against Ladies’ Nights at clubs and bars and women’s studies programs. Den Hollander discussed his lawsuits in a segment on “The Colbert Report” and in articles in prominent publications, including The New Yorker and the New York Times. In the latter — and in his many online diatribes — he attributed much of his anti-feminist anger to his Russian ex-wife.
Den Hollander previously argued one case in front of Salas concerning a woman and her daughter who wanted to register for the military’s selective service, which was only available to men. According to CNN, Salas agreed with some of Den Hollander’s arguments, but not others. She allowed the lawsuit to continue, but Den Hollander gave the case to another group of lawyers in 2019 because he said he was terminally ill. He wrote on his website that he’d been diagnosed with cancer in 2018.
He also wrote about Salas in his self-published novel “Stupid Frigging Fool” — which he dedicated to his mother, “may she burn in Hell”. Regarding the case, he wrote that it “was assigned to this hot Latina judge in the U.S. Court District for New Jersey whom Obama had appointed. At first, I wanted to ask the Judge out, but thought she might hold me in contempt.” He later wrote that she was lazy and incompetent, claiming she delayed making a decision because if she ruled draft legislation unconstitutional “the Feminists who believed females deserved preferential treatment would criticize her,” and if she ruled the other way, “then those Feminists who advocate for equal treatment would criticize her.”
“Either way it was lose-lose for Salas unless someone took the risk of leading the way. Throughout the history of the human race, who has been willing to take the lead — men,” Den Hollander wrote.
At one point in time, Den Hollander, like Angelucci, was affiliated with NCFM. However, NCFM President Harry Crouch told CBS Los Angeles that he’d ousted Den Hollander “five or six years ago because he was a nut job.”
Den Hollander’s personal website reveals a trove of misogynistic thinking — though Den Hollander wrote he couldn’t be a misogynist because he only despised feminists, but not attractive young women who weren’t feminists. “You can’t hate that which you lust after,” he wrote.
He also noted he wasn’t part of other men’s rights groups saying, “I don’t belong to that group of wimps and whiners. They’re trying to win back their rights by acting like girls instead of men. Most men’s rights advocates act like little girls and behave largely as the Feminists tell them to.”
In his 152-page alphabetized manifesto, “The Evolutionarily Correct Cyclopedia,” he referred to women as mentally inferior and less logical, calling them “inconsiderate, insecure, and irresponsible”; “skittish, scared, dependent little creatures, so they become upset when a guy doesn’t do what they want”; and “parasites” who live off men.
He wrote about chasing after young women because “girls don’t age very well.” How young? “Depends on the state I’m in,” seemingly a reference to individual states’ consent laws. He claimed that he doesn’t use the term “bitch” only because “it gives girls too much credit.”
And chillingly, Den Hollander seemed to foreshadow recent events under the entry “Solutions”:
“Things begin to change when individual men start taking out those specific persons responsible for destroying their lives before committing suicide. When every life destroyed by a lying tongue is repaid with another destroyed by a gun.”
According to CBS Los Angeles, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department handed over the investigation of Angelucci’s murder to the New Jersey FBI.