Breaking: 'Anti-feminist' lawyer suspected of shooting judge's family found dead as son was killed and her husband injured

A self-described anti-feminist lawyer found dead in the Catskills from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound is the prime suspect in the shooting of a federal judge’s family in New Jersey, the FBI has said.

Roy Den Hollander, who received media attention including appearances on Fox News and Comedy Central for lawsuits challenging perceived infringements of men’s rights, was found dead on Monday in Sullivan County, New York.

The FBI confirmed Den Hollander had been pronounced dead and said it was thought he had killed himself but provided no other details. Information about another judge, New York chief judge Janet DiFiore, was found among his belongings, a state court spokesperson said.

A day earlier, a gunman posing as a FedEx delivery person went to the home of US district judge Esther Salas in North Brunswick, New Jersey, and started shooting, wounding her husband, the defense lawyer Mark Anderl, and killing her 20-year-old son, Daniel Anderl.

Salas was at home but in another part of the house and was unharmed, said officials.

Den Hollander was involved in a lawsuit, filed in 2015, that was being heard by Salas involving a woman who wanted to register for the men-only military draft. In writings posted online, Den Hollander derided the judge as having traded on her Hispanic heritage to get ahead.

A package addressed to Salas was found along with Den Hollander’s body, the officials said.

Den Hollander also posted online about posing as a FedEx delivery person to speak with a young girl, the same tactic the gunman apparently used at the door to the judge’s home.

Den Hollander was best known previously for unsuccessful lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of “ladies’ night” promotions at bars and nightclubs. His litigation, and willingness to appear on television, earned him spots on The Colbert Report and MSNBC.

Another lawsuit argued night clubs were violating human rights by charging men hundreds of dollars for bottle service. In 2008, he unsuccessfully sued Columbia University for providing women’s studies classes, saying they were a bastion of bigotry against men.

Daniel Anderl was due to head back shortly to the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where he was named to the Dean’s List this spring.

“I was shocked last night to hear news of Daniel Anderl’s tragic death Sunday evening in New Jersey. Daniel was a rising junior, enrolled for classes beginning in the next few weeks,” the university president, John Garvey, wrote on Twitter.

Salas, seated in Newark, was nominated by Barack Obama and confirmed in 2011. Prior to that, she served as a US magistrate judge after working as an assistant public defender for several years.

In more than 2,000 pages of often misogynistic, racist writings, Den Hollander criticized Salas’s life story of being abandoned by her father and raised by her poor mother as the usual effort to blame a man and turn someone into super girl.

In another section, part of a collection posted online that resembled an early draft of a memoir, he wrote about being treated recently for cancer and wanting to use the rest of his time to wrap up his affairs.

“No more chances now, if there ever really were any, for glory and fortune, but maybe a little old time justice as in all those 1950s television westerns I watched as a kid when the lone cowboy refused to give up without a fight,” he wrote. “The only problem with a life lived too long under Feminazi rule is that a man ends up with so many enemies he can’t even the score with all of them. But law school and the media taught me how to prioritize.”

Den Hollander’s writings also point to a possible connection to the area where he was found dead. He described going to a family cabin in the Catskills community of Beaverkill, about 40 minutes by car from Liberty.

Den Hollander filed for bankruptcy in 2011, citing more than $120,000 in credit card debt, as well as rent and other expenses. In the filing, Den Hollander estimated he made about $300 a month from his work, with the bulk of his income coming from a $724 monthly social security payment.

Salas, born in California to a Cuban immigrant mother and Mexican father, spent most of her childhood in Union City, New Jersey. After helping her family escape a devastating house fire, she acted as her mother’s translator and advocate, foreshadowing her career in law as she argued her family’s case to welfare officials, according to a 2018 magazine profile.