Number 7 Roy Den Hollander American lawyer Roy Den Hollander
was a self-admitted anti-feminist and a men’s rights activist who’d filled a string of lawsuits
against “ladies night” promotions at various nightclubs and bars. He also sued Columbia
University for incorporating women’s studies classes. His lawsuits were largely unsuccessful
and openly mocked by those he sought to oppose. In 2015, he represented plaintiffs challenging
the constitutionality of the male-only draft in the United States District Court for the District
of New Jersey. Judge Esther Selas allowed the case to proceed to court, but was against some
of Hollander’s arguments. He later came to believe that she was purposefully stalling
out of political motivation. Hollander had also been part of the National Coalition for Men,
or the NCFM, before he was kicked out following a disagreement with fellow members, including lawyer
Marc Angelucci. Hollander was said to have perceived Angelucci as a rival and held a
grudge against him. Evidence suggests that, following a terminal cancer diagnosis in 2019,
Hollander launched a campaign to eliminate his perceived enemies. On July the 11th of 2020,
Angelucci went to the front door of his home, in Cedarpines Park, California, after being
told that a package had arrived for him. A man dressed as a delivery worker then executed him
at point blank range. Angelucci was pronounced dead at the scene. Eight days later, Judge Esther
Salas was in the basement of her home, in New Jersey, when a gunman arrived at her residence.
Her 20-year-old son, David, was shot dead. Salas’s husband, Mark, also suffered multiple
gunshot wounds and was left in critical condition but survived. A man in a FedEx uniform was spotted
in the neighborhood at the time of the attack but he couldn’t be confirmed as the shooter.
72-year-old Hollander’s lifeless body was found the following day, in Upstate New York, and it was
determined he’d died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A car rented in his name was discovered
on the same road as his body and it contained a list of targets that included Salas, Angelucci
and an oncologist who’d treated him. The Walther semiautomatic handgun he’d used matched the
caliber of the weapons used on Angelucci and Salas’s family. Hollander was identified as the
primary subject in both shootings. Number 6 John Liquori
On Christmas Day 2020, a well-known Connecticut lawyer killed his wife and then took his own
life. The motive remains unclear for 59-year-old John Liquori’s actions, which shocked his family,
colleagues and his Suffield community. Some have attributed them to the added stress of practicing
law during the pandemic, as John was extremely anxious about some cases coming up in January, but
this hasn’t conclusively been proven. He’d handled most of the divorce and family cases at his firm
and reportedly displayed professionalism even in the most acrimonious of proceedings. John and his
wife Cindy, aged 55, were dog-sitting for her mother, in Windsor Locks, while she was getting
treatment for Covid-19 at a local hospital. It was reported that Cindy herself had tested
positive for the virus while John was awaiting results. On the day of the shooting, he’d called
his brother-in-law to come and pick up the dogs. He’d called the man again, later, and reportedly
sounded distraught. When Cindy’s brother arrived at the address, at around 6 pm, he found their
lifeless bodies. It’s believed that John had shot his wife, with a revolver, while she was sleeping.
He then lay next to her and turned the gun on himself. Their autopsies would indicate they’d
both succumbed to gunshot wounds to the head. Number 5 Todd Macaluso
From 2009 to 2010, Todd Macaluso represented Casey Anthony in what Time magazine dubbed “the social
media case of the century”. Anthony faced the death penalty after being charged with the murder
of her own child, which prosecutors argued she’d done to free herself from parental responsibility.
In 2011, Casey was found not guilty of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse,
and aggravated manslaughter of a child, which triggered public outrage. Following her acquittal,
Macaluso reportedly used his private jet to fly her out of Orlando. In November of 2015, Macaluso
was given heavy fines and sentenced to 5 months in jail, after pleading guilty to wire fraud in
California. Without his clients’ knowledge, he’d put up their personal injury cases as collateral,
forging their signatures to enter funding agreements with investors. He was disbarred
in 2016. While out on supervised release, that same year, Macaluso was involved in another high
profile case only not as a legal representative but as a suspected drug smuggler. He was charged
with taking part in an international trafficking conspiracy that involved transporting roughly
3,000 pounds of cocaine aboard his Falcon 10 private jet. According to the prosecution,
he’d repeatedly met with drug distributors in Tijuana, Mexico. In November of 2016 he flew
to Haiti and was expected to transport the drugs the day after his arrival. The plan was to take
them to Honduras from where they’d be sold to Mexican dealers and imported in the US. Once the
drop off was complete, Macaluso was supposed to receive $200,000, according to federal agents. The
plot was uncovered after his name came up while investigators were looking at drug traffickers
planning to use planes registered in the US. Macaluso never made it out of Haiti,
as he was arrested alongside two accomplices. The former lawyer was extradited to the US where
he was ultimately sentenced to 15 years in prison, in addition to a $10,000 fine.
Number 4 Thomas Lowe
In August of 2011, lawyer Thomas Lowe, a man in his late 50s, met a client, whose identity
wasn’t released, to discuss the possibility of representing her in a divorce. Lowe, who worked
out of an office in Burnsville, Minnesota, then preyed on the woman’s vulnerability.
During a phone call with her, several days later, he complimented her on her appearance,
asked intimate questions about her marriage life and asked if she was interested in him.
They went on to have an affair, while Lowe acted as her attorney. Perhaps most shocking of all,
Lowe billed the woman on the dates they met to have intercourse. They were registered as
meetings or drafting memos, reportedly amounting to nearly $1,000. In what was reported as an
attempt to save his own marriage, Lowe broke it off with the client and, two days later,
also withdrew as her lawyer. The woman, with a history of abuse and mental health treatment,
attempted to take her own life in the aftermath. She revealed the affair while recovering in the
hospital. Lowe initially denied it but eventually “unconditionally admitted” to the transgression.
On January the 10th of 2013, the Supreme Court of Minnesota ruled that he be suspended indefinitely.
Number 3 Michael Avenatti In one of the more high-profile cases of his
career, lawyer Michael Avenatti represented adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, professionally
known as Stormy Daniels, in the scandal with former US President Donald Trump. Daniels
had attempted to go public on an affair she’d allegedly had with Trump in 2006. In the final
days of the 2016 presidential election, she was paid $130,000 by Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen,
to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Avenatti then represented Daniels, in March of 2018, in
a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the NDA. He also represented her in a defamation lawsuit against
Trump, which was ultimately dismissed. Later, Daniels would claim that the lawyer had filed the
suit against her wishes and he was also accused of embezzling $300,000 from her. Avenatti capitalized
on the attention from the case and went on what was described as a “publicity tour” making over
100 TV appearances and commenting on the case on social media. In March of 2019, Daniels terminated
her arrangement with him. That same month, he was arrested in New York City for trying to extort $25
million out of shoe and athletic apparel company Nike. On the 25th he was taken into custody,
15 minutes after announcing that he’d hold a press conference, the following day, to reveal a scandal
involving the company that related to high school and college basketball players. On the 25th,
in the afternoon, Avenatti and an unnamed accomplice were meant to meet lawyers from Nike
after reportedly offering to cancel the conference in exchange for payment. He was ultimately found
guilty on three counts of attempted extortion and, in July of 2021, sentenced to 30 months in prison.
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Number 2 Clement Vallandigham In the 1800s, at the time of the American
Civil War, Clement Vallandigham was the leader of the Copperheads, a faction of the Democrats
that wanted immediate peace with the Confederates. Fifteen Democratic congressmen adhered to a slogan
that Vallandigham had coined and which stated the aspiration "To maintain the Constitution as it is,
and to restore the Union as it was." He was a prominent critic of President Abraham Lincoln,
and a chief officer in a secret anti-war society called the Knights of the Golden Circle,
which later became the Sons of Liberty. For all the political controversy surrounding him,
Vallandigham’s life ended rather unceremoniously, in 1871, when he accidentally shot himself in the
abdomen while trying to prove a client’s innocence. At a trial in Lebanon, Ohio,
he represented a man accused of shooting another during a ballroom brawl. Vallandigham argued that
the victim had accidentally shot himself as he rose from a kneeling position and drew the pistol
from his pocket. 50-year-old Vallandigham selected a pistol he believed to be unloaded and, in court,
enacted the events as they might’ve happened. During the demonstration he snagged the weapon,
which was, in fact, loaded, on his clothing and it discharged into his stomach. The ball of the
pistol is believed to have gotten trapped near his bladder but doctors were unable to find it
and he succumbed to peritonitis the following day. Albeit tragic, Vallandigham’s demonstration
irrefutably proved his point and his client was acquitted only to eventually be gunned down in
a saloon, four years later. Number 1 Richard Merritt
In January of 2019, disgraced and disbarred lawyer Richard Merritt was sentenced to 15
years in prison and another 15 on probation for stealing from over a dozen of his clients
in Cobb County, Georgia. 44-year-old Merritt was found guilty on 34 counts of
theft and exploitation. He admitted to settling civil lawsuits behind his clients’ backs,
forging their signatures on official documents and then keeping the money intended for them. Roughly
17 of his clients were affected by Merritt’s actions that resulted in him stealing over
$450,000 which he reportedly used to buy a Porsche and pay for lavish holidays. After his sentencing,
Merritt was given two weeks to get his affairs in order, after which he was meant to turn himself
in, on February the 1st. Merritt didn’t surrender to face justice for his crimes and, instead,
cut off his ankle monitor and went on the run. US Marshals headed to a Stone Mountain home,
in DeKalb County, on February the 2nd, to retrieve him. They arrived to find that his mother,
77-year-old Shirley, had been brutally murdered. She’d been bludgeoned and stabbed to death,
with Merritt subsequently becoming the main suspect in her killing. He was also reported
to have stolen his mother’s Lexus SUV as he fled from the law. A nationwide manhunt was launched
with US Marshals warning the public not to engage Merritt as he was to be considered
armed and dangerous. There were concerns that he’d seek revenge on his former clients who’d pressed
charges against him. After around 8 months, he was found near a thrift shop in Tennessee
and arrested without incident. A DeKalb County grand jury indicted him for the murder and
assault of his mother. According to updates on the case, he was still awaiting a trial date.
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