Lawyer linked to California and New Jersey slayings described as jealous and angry

Roy Den Hollander, the lawyer suspected in a deadly shooting at federal judge’s home over the weekend and linked to the July 11 slaying of men’s rights lawyer Marc Angelucci at his home near Crestline, was jealous and angry about Angelucci’s prominence, says a man who knew them both.

Den Hollander was enraged he was not co-counsel in a lawsuit Angelucci had filed against the Selective Service System, said Harry Crouch, who heads the San Diego-based the National Coalition for Men.

Angelucci, 52, died when he was shot at his home in Cedar Pines Park in the San Bernardino Mountains, in an attack similar to the one at the judge’s home, with the shooter claiming to be a delivery man and opening fire.

Angelucci was vice president of the National Coalition for Men, which states on its website  it is “committed to ending harmful discrimination and stereotypes against boys, men, their families and the women who love them.”

Den Hollander described himself as an “anti-feminist” attorney who filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of “ladies night” promotions at bars and nightclubs, sued Columbia University for providing women’s studies classes, and sued news organizations over what he said was biased coverage.

Crouch said he kicked Den Hollander out of the organization around 2013 when Den Hollander complained about being left out of the lawsuit that Angelucci had filed. Den Hollander also then threatened Crouch, the official said.

“He heard about it, and he was really upset, yelling and screaming and swearing,” Crouch said of the call regarding the lawsuit. He said Den Hollander, who lived in New York, told Crouch he was going  “to ‘come out to California and kick my ass’ — that’s a quote.”

That led to Den Hollander’s dismissal from the organization.

Crouch said he had not talked to Den Hollander since then. “At that same time, I think Marc called him up over his threats against me, and so there was a little animosity there.” He did not have details of the call.

Den Hollander was sought in the Sunday attack on the North Brunswick, N.J. home of federal judge Esther Salas that left her son dead and husband critically wounded, Den Hollander was found dead Monday in Sullivan County, New York from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.

Two law enforcement officials, cautioning that the investigation was in its earliest stages, said federal authorities were examining whether Mr. Den Hollander might be linked to the Angelucci slaying, according to The New York Times.

Death and revenge

Den Hollander wrote of about death and revenge in an online draft of a 1,500-page memoir titled “I’m a Stupid Frigging Fool”.

“There has been a joy in fighting everybody who violates my rights, especially the Feminazis, but nothing in this life matters anymore,” he wrote. “All the illusions and false hopes no longer hold sway. Death’s hand is on my left shoulder as it walks beside me, and that’s just fine … a man ends up with so many enemies he can’t even the score with all of them.”

Attorneys and members of the coalition are aware of the similarities of the two attacks, Crouch said, but are being reserved in their judgment because they are involved in several cases where emotions run high.

“I’m really hopeful that this resolves everything, because there’s still a number of people out there, in our organization, that are concerned about being shot,” added Crouch.

In the 2013 lawsuit, Angelucci prevailed in a 2019 decision that found conscripting only male service members into compulsory military service via the draft was unfair to men and unconstitutional.  Angelucci argued the case again in early March before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. No ruling had yet been issued.

Den Hollander, 72, filed his own Selective Service lawsuit in 2015 in New Jersey, and it was assigned to Judge Salas in New Jersey.  He since withdrew from the case, claiming he had terminal cancer.

It was at Salas’s home where her son, 20-year-old Daniel Anderl, was killed and his father, Mark Anderl, 63, was wounded in the Sunday night attack. Salas, 51, was in another part of the house and was unharmed.

Salas was among the many targets of Den Hollander’s online attacks that often espoused extreme anti-feminism.

Crouch said Tuesday he has told law enforcement about the issues with Den Hollander since the attorney was found dead and linked to the New Jersey shooting.

He said he considered Den Hollander an “outlier” in the men’s rights movement. “Roy, like many people, suffered from a very bad divorce. So he developed some very negative attitudes towards women and put those out over the internet and all sorts of places.” 

Crouch said the National Coalition for Men is  “not a shame, blame, and guilt organization.”

“Lady unluck”

Also in “I’m a Stupid Frigging Fool,” Hollander complained that Salas had held up his Selective Service suit while Angelucci had found success with his similar suit, which was filed in Cailfornia but wound up being heard in Texas.

Den Hollander wrote that in Angelucci’s Texas case “two guys were the plaintiffs and a white 70 year-old man was the judge,” and got a summary judgment in 18 months.  Den Hollander said he meanwhile was contending with three years of motions to dismiss.

“We, however, were still in the first inning fighting over DOJ’s fourth motion to dismiss,” Den Hollander wrote of his New Jersey case. “Just unbelievable, by now we should have been knocking on the U.S. Supreme Court’s door, but lady unluck stuck us with an Obama appointee.”

“As far as I know, that was the whole story,”  J. Steven Svoboda, a spokesman for the coalition, said of Den Hollander’s jealousy of Angelucci, who he called “the most self-effacing man you could meet. The fact that this happened to him is so heartbreaking.”

“Marc bent over backwards to understand others and empathize,” Svoboda said, contrasting with Den Holland, who called, “a complete nut case, and I think everyone else thought the same way.”

“I hope everything may be put to rest and the people I love and care about no longer have to worry about opening their front doors,” Crouch said.

Angelucci was an adjunct professor in the business department at Pasadena City College. He was a graduate of UC Berkeley and earned his law degree at UCLA.

Neither the FBI nor the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department released any new information Tuesday on the California case.

Staff writer Scott Schwebke and The Associated Press contributed to this report.