Suspect in shooting at judge's house is dead

The main suspect in the shooting of the 20-year-old son and the husband of a federal judge at their New Jersey home Sunday was a lawyer and men's rights activist who was later found dead from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Federal authorities are investigating whether Roy Den Hollander, 69, was the gunman who showed up dressed as a FedEx delivery driver at the home of US District Court Judge Esther Salas, 51, in North Brunswick, New Jersey, and killed her son and wounded her husband Sunday afternoon. The judge was in the basement at the time and was unharmed in the attack.

New York State Police found Den Hollander's body in a car Monday morning near the town of Liberty, New York, 100 miles northwest of Manhattan.

As part of the investigation into the lawyer's death, the police found a FedEx package that was addressed to Judge Salas, according to a law enforcement official cited by ABC News.

"There's a pretty good level of confidence he's the guy," said an official quoted by The New York Times.

In 2015, Den Hollander, a Manhattan lawyer, brought a class-action lawsuit before Judge Salas challenging the male-only US military draft that is still pending, according to the Daily Beast website. Oral arguments on a motion were scheduled for last month but then postponed due to "unforeseen circumstances", according to the case docket.

On his website, Den Hollander touted himself as an "anti-feminist lawyer", according to The New York Times. His lawsuit accused the US government's Selective Service System, the agency that maintains a database of those eligible for a military draft, of violating equal protection rights by requiring only men to register. Salas ruled that the lawsuit could proceed, and the case is ongoing.

The plaintiff was a New Jersey woman, Elizabeth Kyle-Lebell, who tried to register for the Selective Service twice. According to USA Today, Salas "dismissed Kyle-Labell's argument the male-only draft requirement deprived her of due process, but allowed another one — that a male-only draft deprives women of 'equal protection of the law' — to proceed".

Den Hollander drew public attention and derision more than a decade ago for his high-profile lawsuits over the constitutionality of New York nightclubs offering "Ladies' Night" drink discounts, and universities offering women's studies courses.

None of his men's rights litigation was notably successful but did generate press clippings and talk-radio appearances.

Judge Salas, the first Hispanic woman to serve as a federal judge in New Jersey, herself gained attention for presiding over high-profile cases. In 2014, she sentenced Teresa and Joe Giudice, two married stars of the television show The Real Housewives of New Jersey, to prison time over fraud charges.

Last week, she was assigned to oversee a class-action lawsuit filed against Deutsche Bank contending that the bank failed to flag "anti-money-laundering deficiencies" in transactions made by financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died last year while in a federal jail in New York City while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

The judge's husband, criminal defense attorney Mark Anderl, 63, was shot multiple times and was hospitalized in stable condition Monday, according to Carlos Salas, the judge's older brother. Their son, Daniel Anderl, a college freshman at Catholic University in Washington, died immediately from a gunshot to the heart.

The Daily Beast said that investigators have not officially released any motive or said who might have been the intended target of the ambush but noted that federal judges are frequent targets of threats.

The website also noted that the shooting came a week after the violent death in California of attorney Marc Angelucci, another prominent men's rights figure who worked on similar cases to Den Hollander and who was shot dead at his house. The San Bernardino Sheriff's Office said Monday that no arrests have been made in Angelucci's death.

In 2016, Den Hollander filed a suit against reporters and commentators from several large US news organizations — CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post — claiming their "false and misleading news reports" on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump constituted "wire fraud" under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which is usually used to prosecute organized crime figures.