Roy Den Hollander, the self-described “anti-feminist” attorney who authorities say is the chief suspect in the shootings of the son and the husband of a federal judge in New Jersey, attacked that judge by name in misogynistic, racist writings he wrote over a period of years and posted in bulk on the Internet Archive. Den Hollander, who describes himself as a Trump volunteer in his writings, called the judge an “affirmative action” case who affiliated with those who wanted “to convince America that whites, especially white males, were barbarians, and all those of a darker skin complexion were victims.”
Esther Salas’s 20-year-old son was killed in the attack at their home on Sunday, and her husband was wounded. Den Hollander was later found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in Rockland, New York. Den Hollander’s insults toward Salas were included in a 2,028-page collection of writings he posted online in 2019 under the username Roy17den, a handle that mirrored his Twitter account, @roy17den, and the email address he used both in personal letters and in court filings.
Along with the attacks on Salas, Den Hollander’s writings also go after President Barack Obama (who he said has an “obsession to turn America into a banana republic”), Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor (who he claimed was “angry that nobody had invited her to her high school senior prom”), Hillary Clinton (whose supporters were “teary-eyed, sad-sack, PC loonies watching their power of intolerance go down the drain”), and an Obama appointee (whom he describes as part of “that Orwellian party of feminists, ethnics, Muslims, illegals and queers who think they are superior to everyone else, especially white males.”)
In contrast, he writes in the same sprawling document that he was a volunteer for the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, who he said “was telling the truth about illegal aliens in his bid for the Presidency.” Den Hollander describes “leaving the law library in the early afternoon for Trump Tower, 12 blocks up Fifth Avenue, to make telephone calls during the primaries and the general election.” Recounting his time working for the campaign, he says most of his fellow volunteers “were aging baby boomers like me. Once in a while some hot young model chick would show up to make calls. They never sat next to me.” The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a question about the nature of Den Hollander’s volunteer work, or whether they had any record of his involvement.
Den Hollander, who was 72, held deeply misogynistic beliefs about women and filed a series of lawsuits against what he considered unfair advantages they had over men. One of those suits, in which he argued that it was unconstitutional for women not to be subject to military draft, reached Salas’s court in 2019. Salas did not throw out the suit, as many of Den Hollander’s previous cases had been. She instead allowed the lawsuit to proceed through the court system. But Den Hollander was upset by what he considered to be Salas’s delaying of the case. He complained that she allowed the Department of Justice to file its fourth motion to dismiss the case, suggesting she was “trying to keep this case in her court until a weatherman showed her which way the legal winds were blowing.”