By David Futrelle
On Sunday evening, a man dressed as a FedEx employee knocked on the door of the house of federal judge Esther Salas. When the judge’s husband and son opened the door, the man shot them both, killing the son.
According to the Daily Beast, law enforcement sources are saying that the shooter was Men’s Rights attorney Roy Den Hollander, who was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Monday morning.
Hollander, the New York Times reports, brought a case before the judge in 2015 concerning male-only draft registration. [See CORRECTION note below]
A publicity-seeking activist attorney, Hollander was perhaps best known for a series of lawsuits taking aim at “Ladies Nights” at bars and clubs, which he felt discriminated against men. (He appeared on the Colbert Report once as a “Difference Maker” eager to show off his hip-hop dance moves.) He also sued a nightclub claiming that it was a human rights violation to be forced to pay $350 for a bottle of vodka. In 2016, he sued an assortment of big names in the news business, claiming they had committed “wire fraud” by broadcasting “fake news” about Donald Trump.
I’ve written about him several times, describing the controversy over a “male studies” course he thought he was slated to teach in Australia (the University in question said it had never approved the course in the first place). Hollander later sued two Australian journalists — in the lawsuit he described them as “modern-day, book-burning, Bacchae reporters from down-under” — for allegedly posting falsehoods about him and getting him fired from the teaching gig the school says he was never actually hired for.
But among some Men’s Rights activists the man was a hero. Paul Elam of A Voice for Men once praised him for
putting his name on the line and his license to practice law at work, taking on everything from financial discrimination against men by nightclubs in “Ladies Nights” to Columbia University’s Women Studies Program which he contends more resembles a religion than not. …
[A]s much as I loathe the idea of anyone claiming authority on what a “real” man is, if I had to venture a guess, it would be men like Hollander.
A Voice for Men also published an article by him back in 2010, making him the first alleged murderer to be linked directly to the hate site.
Strangely, only a week ago another prominent Men’s Rights attorney, a man named Marc Angelucci, was gunned down outside his house in San Bernardino County, California. No suspects have been named, but I can’t help but wonder if Hollendar was somehow involved in this murder as well.
I will likely follow up on both of these stories as they develop.
H/T — @EyesOnTheRight
CORRECTION: I originally reported that the Daily Beast said he had a pending case before the judge; other news outlets, including the NYT, are saying it was in 2015, so I altered a sentence to say that.
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One single suggestion away, maybe not, but the hateful and entitled are often quite willing to resort to violence up to and including murder. For example, about 1000 women are murdered by an intimate male partner annually in the States, according to statistics, and those don’t always include murders committed by ex-boyfriends.
https://domesticviolencehomicidehelp.com/statistics/
Especially in countries where it is easy to access guns, it’s certainly not uncommon for aggrieved people to commit murder.
@ Shiela
Generally speaking it wouldn’t be. Potentially though there are situations where it could. This is all from an English law perspective of course.
This is something that crops up a bit with activism. We have to be a bit careful when we’re doing our talks not to cross the line into ‘incitement’ as the offence used to be called.
There’s a two part test: Would the words encourage someone to commit an offence? Are you intending that the person is encouraged to carry out the offence?
The mere fact that it should have been obvious the person would be encouraged doesn’t automatically create the requisite intent.
This is the relevant legislation here:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2007/27/section/44
There’s also similar provisions for the encouragement of terrorist offences.
So just mouthing off in a bar might not cross the threshold. But if you knew someone just needed a little push to make them actually commit a crime and you deliberately pushed them over the edge, then that might be enough.
“Will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest?” and all that.
ETA: It’s irrelevant whether the person actually does commit the offence; it’s the encouragement that counts. Although that makes it a lot harder to prove. But be careful what you say to undercover cops.
I wouldn’t want to say anything for certain, because god knows whats really going on in this mess, but in the case of Epstein, I do think there’s something larger at play – even if it’s not exactly in the ways that seem obvious.
Epstein wasn’t only a sex offender, he was also a career criminal who’s financial dealings were dodgy to say the least. Then there’s the Prince Andrew connection – in the UK, Jimmy Saville was protected throughout decades of the most heinous abuse, including openly visiting morgues in the hospitals he raised funds for. He attended Margaret Thatcher’s New Years Eve parties for years – I doubt she knew or condoned, but the fact a skeezy talentless DJ managed this is astonishing. The only thing that can explain it in my mind is that he knew about Andrew and potentially others, could pull favours, and there was pressure from the British establishment in a conspiracy of convenience to keep a lid on it until he died lest he spill the beans.
Essentially, I think there’s a lot of very rich and politically powerful people determined to damage-limitation the Epstein situation as much as possible, including Trump and the Royal family.
@Big Titty Demon
I don’t know much about him, but the main impression I got was that he did some really frivolous lawsuits and spent a lot of time on misogynistic websites before this all happened. I don’t know if he did any legitimate DV activism, it’s possible but I’d be surprised.
@Ohlmann
Relatively speaking, yes. Still, what they do and are good at is often not what they are supposed to be doing. And some are flat out shitty at what they are supposed to do, like Betsy DeVos as education secretary.
Might as well ask “Do we know for certain he’s dead?”
Look, people don’t kill easily at the best of times. Would have made my life infinitely easier if they did! Takes a lot to get your average Joe Pudding psyched up to kill someone who isn’t immediate family (that’s not to say killing immediate family is easier, just more likely to happen in the heat of the moment).
Couple that with the fact that people – even arrogantly entitled, coddled arseholes – respond poorly to killing the wrong damned person, which this tool did, and suicide in response isn’t unlikely in the least.
@Catalpa : the thing is, thoses peoples aren’t holding their murderous impulse in check until someone say it’s OK to kill her.
Humans are murderous assholes, but there is a process before the kill and it can be long, difficult, random, or all three to provoke it against a specific person.
@threp : on the other hand, murder disguised as suicide happen all the time. Just, generally speaking, they tend to fall apart and look like murders rather soon.
@Scott Hamilton
It is known and documented that the FBI occasionally murders people and pins the blame on some other person or organization. If you think this is a conspiracy theory, then you’re not familiar with the story of Fred Hampton and how that “conspiracy theory” was outed by the FBI’s own documentation when leftists broke into an FBI property and stole some papers. It looked like a hit by the Chicago police, and was prosecuted as self-defense on the part of the police, but it was an FBI operation.
If you think that was a one-off, you are so naive I can’t do anything for you.
Epstein, had he lived and gone to trial, would have brought down some insanely powerful people. There are many suspicious coincidences about his death. If nothing else, it is not only plausible, but probable that he was helped along by corrections officers not putting him onto a suicide watch as they had been instructed to do, and turning off the cameras/destroying the footage so that their lack of a suicide watch could be covered up. “This guy has already tried to commit suicide once, let’s just not intervene in his next attempt” is hardly an out-there idea on par with Flat Earth, and your attempts to characterize it as such reflect more on you than they do on me.
@ Shiela
I did actually ramble on a bit about all the various ‘incitement’ type offences in this meeting. Relevant bit starts around 1:26:00. And there’s some more general things about conspiracy/joint enterprise just before that.
Fair point. Generally the folks trying to get stochastic terrorists to do their dirty work don’t expect it to be specific. It’s more of a “if I keep mentioning these talking points, sooner or later someone is going to attack [targeted group]” deal, than a “I can just suggest some schlub into murdering this person/family specifically at 4 pm on the 3rd”.
Now, that’s not being fair to Scott’s original statement, where he very clearly was only against the theory that Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself, rather than the theory that Epstein Killed Himself and Everyone Else Looked the Other Way:
(emphasis added)
@Ariblester : I am not sure if you’re trying to be ironic or if you really defend him, but :
* PoM point is more that the hit was done by leaving Epstein in a position where he could kill himself and would want to kill himself, not “just” that people looked away.
* the quote you give show that Scott think he wasn’t influenced to suicide himself.
And let’s be clear : manipulating someone into suicide is *WAY* worse than killing him by cold blood.
My defense is sincere. From your previous statements, I understand that you yourself are doubtful that a suicidal person will attempt it a second time after a failed attempt (which I must say doesn’t jibe with my own intuition, but I do not have enough experience to refute it), so you are inclined to believe that Epstein was no longer suicidal, but rather was manipulated into killing himself in a second suicide attempt.
All fine and good, but now that is yet another theory, Epstein Killed Himself Due to the Influence of Others. Which is not what PoM is suggesting. Allowing a suicidal person to kill himself is not the same thing as manipulating an otherwise non-suicidal person into kill himself.
@Ariblester
If someone is supposed to be on a suicide watch, because that person has already attempted once, and isn’t, and this is covered up, and every powerful pedophile in the Western world would breathe a huge sigh of relief if the Epstein problem were to resolve itself, then this is not the correct characterization of that:
Because it does, in fact, constitute a conspiracy for multiple people to act in a way that enabled Epstein to have the privacy he needed to successfully kill himself, and then cover that up so nobody has the proof necessary to show that it was deliberate.
And that leaves aside the other suspicious circumstances. I’m just going by the most charitable, least “conspiracy theory” possibility. I would not at all put it past the FBI to actively off Epstein to protect their Big Boss and all their Big Boss’s friends. They’ve done it before, and left evidence behind that was dismissed as “conspiracy theory” until hard documentation was uncovered. If you think Epstein posed less of a threat to the status quo than Fred Hampton did, then I don’t know what to tell you. There is evidence Epstein was murdered; the only reason to think he wasn’t murdered is the idea that murder is a bridge too far. But it’s not. We know factually it’s not.
So, at the risk of getting too far into the weeds, I am seeing the following theories in this thread:
Scott – Epstein was suicidal and killed himself. To say that his suicide was a cover-up of a murder is a conspiracy theory.
Surplus – Epstein had injuries consistent with the theory that he was killed by someone else, so I disagree with Scott’s argument.
Ohlmann – Epstein was no longer suicidal, but was manipulated by others into killing himself. To say that this is a conspiracy theory is a strawman, so I disagree with Scott’s argument.
PoM – Epstein was suicidal, and the guards turned a blind eye to this and subsequently covered up his suicide. To say that this is a conspiracy theory is a strawman, so I disagree with Scott’s argument.
I can see where the disagreements are, but it doesn’t track with who is siding with whom against what.
EDIT: Yes, PoM, I actually agree with you that it is not out of the question that certain people would be very interested in seeing Epstein ensure his silence by killing himself. I am only saying that this does not have to conflict with Epstein being already suicidal, and it is most certainly not positive evidence in favor of him being murdered. I think we agree on this.
When I hear, “Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself”, I think assassination, not harakiri. And there are plausible explanations for the supposedly impossible neck injuries that Epstein sustained. So I personally discard the most extreme of those theories, while not entirely discounting the possibility of conspiracy. And again, I think we agree. That’s all I have to say.
@Ariblester
I’m open to the idea that he was murdered. And I don’t think that’s a conspiracy theory either.
In which case, I apologize for misrepresenting your point of view.
@Ariblester : to tie it up, my position is more like : “it’s perfectly credible that Epstein was murdered, one of the possible way being by manipulating him into suicide”.
And also, as you noted “the theory of Scott is shoehorned into classic conspiracy theory frame”. That’s visible by how he was the first one to drag in the idea that his killer was an omnipotent state yet unable to do anything right – it’s a classic flaw of most conspiracy, but it don’t apply here at all for various reason already exposed, including simply the fact that passing a murder for a suicide is common enough.
The point about how suicidal don’t make several attempt is more that him having done an attempt before don’t mean other attempts are expected. A lot of people seem to think that once someone is suicidal he will try and try until successful or treated, where in reality most attempts are “spur of the moment” impulses. In other word, it’s not that we have the proof that Epstein wasn’t suicidal, but more that implying he still was require more proof than common sense.
@Catalpa
And this is why it’s so dangerous and difficult to stop: because you can’t uncover a specific plot and plan to foil it, because there is no specific plot for a specific time. It also gives plausible deniability, which is a key part of the far right in America.
Re: Epstein
I find it more plausible that someone turned a blind eye and let him die by suicide rather than him being murdered, but I really don’t know enough to speculate.
It’s also possible that he didn’t want Trump to be taken down, so he took one for the team . This would require thinking beyond himself, which is rare for a right winger, but possible.
@Ohlmann
I’m not sure how many cases Judge Salas ruled on, but say one a week for 10 years, some with multiple plaintiff/defenders (sticks a wet finger in the air) – maybe 500 people with a grudge against her. And the volatile, and nasty would be way overrepresented in that 500 or so. I think you’d have a few promising candidates.
I wasn’t thinking of a one-off conversation, more introducing some new, manipulative “buddies” who would keep nudging. I have an arsehole on the edge of my life who’s very good at that sort of thing. I don’t think it would be expensive to hire him if there were little or no legal jeopardy involved.
I still think it would be worth a try before moving onto something riskier.
@Schnookums Von Fancypants, Naglfar
Oh, no no, you mistook me. I knew that guy Hollander was an asshole. I was talking about the murdered dude–I just totally brain-blanked on his name and it keeps coming up as Andretti (Motorsports!) in my memory banks.
Google reveals it was Angelucci and that he was “loved by everyone in the men’s rights movement” which can’t speak well for him…
Crazy. I remember Roy Den Hollander from back in the aughties. At the time you really couldn’t find a better avatar for the nascent “Men’s Rights” movement: a buffoonish, frivolous clown with completely inchoate politics, and fundamentally not a threat to much of anything.
Things change, I guess.
@Naglfar: “Do we know if the two men knew each other? If so, were they established enemies?”
I know Angelucci replaced Hollander on at least one relatively big case. It’s also noteworthy that Angelucci was the VP of the National Coalition For Men, and that Hollander was explicitly not a member, having been booted from the organization something like 5 years prior.
A statement from the person who answered Angelucci’s door that fateful day said that the shooter was disguised as a delivery man, asked if the person answering the door was Angelucci, and that he had a package that Angelucci had to sign for. When Angelucci came to the door, the man confirmed that it was Angelucci and then shot him. The delivery man was thin, white and had salt and pepper hair.
So the shooter was there specifically to kill Angelucci but apparently didn’t know what Angelucci looked like.
To add another level of possible motives in case it wasn’t Hollander, Angelucci was also near the end of a major case against Mariposa County. The case he was working on was County of Mariposa v. JDC Land Company LLC, where he was representing JDC Land Company and owner Jerry Cox pro bono.
Cox, who had been falsely accused of rape in 2015 and had those charges dropped in 2017, sued the county, accusing officials of conspiring to seize his sprawling 400-acre Bison Creek Ranch property.
In the case Angelucci was working on an appeal with Ronda Kennedy before the California Supreme Court arguing for the rights of landowners ‘against government sanctioned theft of private property by way of underregulated receivership laws’.
What’s talked about too infrequently is that Bill Barr’s father gave Epstein his start, his ticket into the circles of the wealthy and powerful, by hiring him to teach at fancy prep school, Dalton despite not being qualified.
Donald Barr also wrote a sleazy novel depicting sexual abuse of girls that is creepily similar to what Epstein did.
All of which makes the pizzagater’s love for Trump and his loyalists while pretending to crusade against sex trafficking all the more ridiculous.
I’m pretty sure a lot of women were aware that entitled misogynists were a threat to us at least, even then.
Also, please abide by the comments policy and avoid “crazy talk”. Thanks.
Hollander may have planned on killing another judge if his attempt against Judge Salas was successful.
https://www.nj.com/middlesex/2020/07/lawyer-suspected-in-fatal-shooting-at-nj-federal-judges-home-may-have-been-targeting-another-judge.html