Son of US District Judge Esther Salas killed, husband shot
A gunman shot and killed the 20-year-old son of a federal judge as he answered the door of the family home Sunday in New Jersey and shot and wounded the judge's husband before fleeing, according to judiciary officials.
The shootings occurred at the North Brunswick home of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, and killed her son, Daniel, Chief District Judge Freda Wolfson told The Associated Press. Her husband, defense lawyer Mark Anderl, was injured in the attack, Wolfson said.
Salas was in the basement at the time and wasn’t injured, according to a judiciary official who wasn’t authorized to comment and spoke anonymously to the AP.
The perpetrator, believed to be a lone gunman posing as a FedEx delivery person, was not in custody, the official said. The FBI tweeted Sunday night that it's looking for one suspect in the shootings.
Daniel Anderl, a college student, was the judge's only child, the official said.
Salas, seated in Newark, was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed in 2011. Prior to that she served as a U.S. Magistrate Judge in New Jersey, after working as an assistant public defender for several years.
Her highest-profile case in recent years was the financial fraud case involving husband-and-wife “Real Housewives of New Jersey” reality TV stars Teresa and Joe Giudice, whom Salas sentenced to prison for crimes including bankruptcy fraud and tax evasion. Salas staggered their sentences so that one of them could be available to take care of their four children.
In 2017, she barred federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty against an alleged gang leader charged in several Newark slayings, ruling the man’s intellectual disability made him ineligible for capital punishment. Salas later sentenced the man to 45 years in prison.
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