Lawyer wrote of 'feminarchy,' judge whose son FBI says he killed

Long before an “anti-feminist” lawyer allegedly targeted U.S. District Judge Esther Salas' family —— shooting and killing her son, as well as critically wounding her husband — he'd written pages about her about her online.

He also had terminal cancer, the New York Daily News reports.

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 Monday in Sullivan County, New York, two officials with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press.

The FBI has confirmed he's believed to have been the man who showed up at Salas' door in North Brunswick Sunday and opened fire.

A day earlier, a gunman posing as a FedEx delivery person went to Salas' home, and started shooting, wounding her husband, the defense lawyer Mark Anderl, and killing her son, Daniel Anderl.

Salas was at home but in another part of the house and was unharmed, said the officials, who could not discuss an ongoing investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

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

In a screed Den Hollander posted online, he also wrote of 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 family home.

Years of grievances with feminism, and Judge Salas

Hollander had a gender-equity lawsuit, filed in 2015, that was being heard by Salas involving a young woman who wanted to register for the military draft. He also mentioned the judge in writings posted online, deriding her as a ladder climber who traded on her Hispanic heritage to get ahead.

In one of several sites to which he'd posted lengthy anti-feminist missives, Den Hollander called Salas a lazy and incompetent Latina judge appointed by Obama," NBC News reported. He wrote of the 2015 case he "wanted to ask the Judge out, but thought she might hold me in contempt.”

In more than 2,000 pages of often misogynistic, racist writings, Den Hollander criticized Salas’ 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: “When a lunatic shows up with a gun, what do you want for a defense — PC ideology or a six-shooter?”

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.

The attorney's webpage describes him as an anti-feminist and says "Now is the time for all good men to fight for their rights before they have no rights left. Contact Roy to help battle the infringement of Men's Rights by the Feminists and their fellow sisters the PCers."

On site linked from the one that bears his name — and listing his email address as a contact — said he created a resource called "Truth, Justice and the American Ideal" because of the "rampant discrimination (Hollander) experienced at the hands of Feminists and their sycophants in Federal, New York State and New York City agencies and courts when he tried to right the wrongs done to him and the harm caused his property by a Russian mafia prostitute, procurer, former mistress to a Chechen warlord, money launderer, drug smuggler who was aided by her mob associates. (And no, he didn't know she was a prostitute, Russian mafia member or secretly feeding him drugs at the time he married that Ho.)"

On the same site, he warns men: "The cult of Feminism is turning you into a second class citizen and America into a Feminarchy that pampers and preferentially treats females in accordance with the evolutionarily incorrect tenets of Feminazism."

Hollander had been in the headlines several times over his career — including for suing the “Opie and Anthony Show," alleging comic Jim Norton defamed him on the show "by calling him 'stupid' and a 'whore' who had sexual designs on feathered fowl," the New York Post reported in 2009.

He later lost what the New York Daily News described as a "quixotic fight for men's equality" because he was required to buy a $350 bottle of vodka to get into one nightclub. His website describes challenges to ladies' nights at clubs.

His litigation, and willingness to appear on television, earned him spots on The Colbert Report and MSNBC.

Family in mourning

Daniel Anderl, Salas' son, was set to be heading back shortly to The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., 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,” university President John Garvey wrote on Twitter. “He turned 20 last week.”

Salas, seated in Newark, was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed in 2011. Prior to that, she served as a U.S. Magistrate Judge in New Jersey, after working as an assistant public defender for several years.

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.

In the profile, Salas spoke of her son possibly following his parents into the legal profession.

“He’s been arguing with us since he could talk — practicing his advocacy skills," Salas told New Jersey Monthly. “I don't want to dissuade him, but I was pulling for a doctor.”

Several college friends had spent the weekend visiting Daniel for his birthday, leaving just hours before the shooting, neighbor Marion Costanza said.

“These are people that will never see their friend again. Then to think of Esther losing her only child. It’s just devastating,” said Constanza, a lawyer who watched Daniel grow up, and had dinner plans this coming week with his parents.

“I want the world to know what a beautiful kid this was,” she said. “It’s just devastating.”

She said that Salas a few years ago “was a little nervous because she was getting high-profile cases,” but had not mentioned any recent concerns. She last saw Mark Anderl walking the family’s two large dogs on Saturday.

Just last week, Salas was appointed to hear an ongoing lawsuit brought by Deutsche Bank investors who claim the company made false and misleading statements about its anti-money laundering policies and failed to monitor “high-risk” customers including convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Her highest-profile case in recent years was the financial fraud case involving husband-and-wife “Real Housewives of New Jersey” reality TV stars Teresa and Joe Giudice, whom Salas sentenced to prison for crimes including bankruptcy fraud and tax evasion. Salas staggered their sentences so that one of them could be available to take care of their four children.

In 2017, she barred federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty against an alleged gang leader charged in several Newark slayings, ruling the man’s intellectual disability made him ineligible for capital punishment. Salas later sentenced the man to 45 years in prison.

Attorney General William Barr said in a statement Monday that the FBI and the U.S. Marshals will continue investigating the shooting, adding: “This kind of lawless, evil action carried out against a member of the federal judiciary will not be tolerated.”