U.S. District Court Judge Ester Salas says the same gunman who murdered her son and wounded her husband also planned on harming Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
In a new interview with “60 Minutes,” Salas shared the gruesome details about almost being one of the victims of domestic terrorist Roy Den Hollander, a lawyer who was supposed to have a case before Salas. CNN reports Hollander took his own life after killing Salas’s son Daniel. Salas said authorities found a dossier on Sotomayor in a locker that Hollander used.
“They found another gun, a Glock, more ammunition. But the most troubling thing they found was a manila folder with a workup on Justice Sonia Sotomayor,” Salas said in the interview, which is set to air on Sunday. A spokeswoman for the Supreme Court declined to comment, saying the court does “not discuss security as a matter of court policy.”
Chief Justice John Roberts said he had shared his security concerns. He also went against then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer after he criticized Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch on the court steps in 2020, CNN reports. “Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest level of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous,” Roberts said at the time.
Laws are being worked on by legislators that would protect the judge’s personal information from the public and websites online. “Who knows what could have happened?” Salas told CBS. “But we need to understand that judges are at risk. That we put ourselves in great danger every day for doing our jobs.”
