Catherine Kassenoff, victim-survivor of domestic abuse and of a corrupted court system where unethical legal professionals and “experts” treat people like human ATMS, instead of promoting justice, reportedly, took her own life on Saturday, May 27, 2023.
Catherine was a former federal prosecutor, an attorney, embroiled in a seemingly never ending divorce and custody battle with Allan Kassenoff, an attorney and trial lawyer at Greenberg Traurig. They shared three daughters.
A family court in Westchester County in New York removed her girls from her custody.
Catherine’s final message was to keep telling her story so the truth is known and to help save other victim-survivors of domestic abuse and a corrupted court system where “justice” is for sale in America. Trigger warning. It is in that spirit that I republish Catherine’s final message she posted on Facebook.
Catherine Kassenoff’s final message
“Dear Friends, Family and Supporters,
It is with a profound heartbreak, that I hope none of you ever experience, that I am writing my last post ever. Today, I will be ending my own life. I will be doing so in a dignified and idyllic setting in Europe. There are simply no other options left.
In the last four years of my life I have woken up every day to a nightmare like no other. I can no longer endure the abuse and terror of Allan Kassenoff, who has spent the last 4 years mercilessly trying to incarcerate me on false charges, as recently as March 2023.
I have also endured the emotional devastation of being without my children for so long, homeless from Allan’s repeated ex parte evictions of me from the homes I own and rented, deprivation of my property and obliteration of my life savings, the loss of my two dogs, the loss of my career and reputation, and the concomitant humiliation and ostracism from all this.
Perhaps if I had the physical endurance to keep going, I would. But with a new, terminal health issue that will soon be severely limiting my physical strength as well, and with no protection from our courts, I cannot keep running from Allan. I was recently diagnosed with a virulent and life-ending cancer — after having had breast cancer twice in my life already.
I cannot go through debilitating chemo, surgeries and radiation again, this time with a dire prognosis and with Allan fighting me “until he dies” and no court intervention whatsoever. Those were his exact words to me in an email he sent on March 19, 2023 . So please understand why I did not share this news widely: if Allan had known about my health issues, he surely would have tried that much harder to end my existence.
As many of you know, on January 26, 2022, I was falsely arrested on serial reports made by Allan Kassenoff in October 2021, December 2021 and then on January 25, 2022. After I proclaimed my innocence and fought these allegations, I won. On March 16, 2022, all his bogus charges were dropped and his bogus ex parte orders of protection were vacated. His claims for “contempt” — seeking my incarceration — were also dismissed with prejudice.
But history has shown that Allan will never stop until I am gone. As recently as March 18th, 2023, Allan again tried to have me arrested. On that day, while I was watching our 9 year old daughter skate, he got off the ice and came at me. I told him to “get away from me” four times. He wouldn’t. He taunted me instead. He then reported me to police, claiming falsely that he had a “restraining order” when he didn’t and when I had every right to see my daughter skate.
I captured his confrontation of me on video, which I am posting in Dropbox, along with the 911 call and the police report in which he falsely told police I was capable of “killing” him or my own children.
Based on the false 911 call he initiated, police officers came to the rink. Allan stood in the background with our daughter, laughing and pointing at me while I was being questioned, waiting with her to see if I would be taken away in cuffs. See the photo.
Fortunately, I wasn’t arrested; the police realized he was lying. But this is how I have been living for years: like a hunted animal, worried about when Allan will make the next false report. He sees all this as a game and the courts have not stopped him; they too are even scared of him or maybe they just don’t care.
While they handed out ex parte TOPs against me like candy, on his say-say, they would not even enter a TOP against him after two days of testimony from police and the rink manager that he lied in order to try to procure my false arrest — again.
For a long time, I believed I could make my children’s lives better by fighting to stay in them, even if it was for just moments at a time. As time went on, the “in-between” of those moments became interminable, unbearable. I would long for the girls and try to think of all the things they might need, even though I was held at such a distance that I did not even know what those things might be.
I imagined who their friends were, where they went, who they spent time with, what their dreams were. I had nothing more than my own imagination to work with because for the last 3 years, I was excised from being their mother. I could not tuck them into bed at night, take them to school, host their sleepovers, make their breakfasts, or take them on vacations. Allan wouldn’t allow any of that; the court gave him everything he wanted. I often shook from the pain of it.
In recent weeks, I came to realize that my presence in their lives only brings them pain and suffering. That is because they must answer to a father who does not view me as human.
He erased every element of their being that had anything to do with me: French, Christianity, tennis, e.g. They have learned to identify with him, in order to survive. So, they now declare how they “hate Christmas” and they call me “Catherine” instead of “mom.”
In the end, they must reject me for him. I can see the pain on their little faces when they have to manage the unspeakable conflict that only my oldest seems strong enough to manage and fight through to see me. It is a look that has haunted me for a long time. I don’t want to see it anymore. I just want their and my pain to end.
Their father has spent years and millions of dollars — over $ 3 million — to eliminate me from our girls’ lives.
He has liquidated savings to do so. He will never relent, he will spend their life savings, he will demonize me to them mercilessly, and he has made them suffer if they even just want to see me. They have been diagnosed with depression and worse.
As long as I am alive and want to see them, they will be damaged over and over again with every attempt I make. What is the point of that? The last thing I want to do is make my own children suffer.
Even in death, Allan Kassenoff will never stop. After I am gone, he will falsely tell everyone that I am “mentally ill”, that I am a criminal and a liar. But I am none of these things and have proven it. I don’t have a criminal past; I am a former federal prosecutor and special counsel to the governor of NY; I showed the undeniable abuse he perpetrated on numerous videos, showing I did not lie about that; and I have the testimony and reports of various doctors to prove my mental health. See the link.
Indeed, under Swiss law, a person wishing to end their life can only do so after meeting a very high bar and being found competent, not suffering from mental impairments. The Swiss doctor and my therapists, Dr. Anna Filova, MD and Dr. Stephanie Brandt, MD, confirmed this. See the dropbox link. Allan’s need to convince others otherwise comes from his shame about the truth: that he was a domestic abuser.
By trying to cast me in these negative ways, he thinks he can clear his name. He cannot: the videos, audios and other materials will follow him forever. You will find police testimony about his abuse, medical records of his abuse, affidavits about his abuse, and more in the link.
Shame on Greenberg Traurig, who knew all of this, and did nothing to stand up for the rights of domestic abuse survivors like me and my daughters.
My girls deserve so much better than the life they were given by their father and the court system that was supposed to — and miserably failed to — protect them and me.
The court system favors the monied party and, if that party happens to be an angry litigator, God help the other parent.
I was a good and loving mom who sacrificed my own career trajectory to have children, whom I finally conceived after many years of fertility treatments. I did not abuse alcohol, children or drugs. I never had so much as a brush with the law (until Allan tried to have me arrested). I put my kids before everything in life. I did not lose my entire life to a fair and just process.
I exposed both a corrupt forensic evaluator named Marc Abrams and a corrupt attorney for the children, Carol Most, both of whom were removed in disgrace from my case. But the system did not fix what it broke after that came to light. It turned my custody battle into a money-making churn.
Allan filed this divorce action in May 2019. Until just recently, there still was no final trial scheduled in this case.
What a complete disgrace — to use the misery of a family so that the various court personnel involved can get rich: Dr. Adler, whose PsyD somehow qualified her to charge $600/hour to “reprogram” the girls; Dr. McGuffog, who charged $450/hour so that the father could sit in on my daughter’s sessions and who told my daughter she had to “pick between me or your mom”; Dr. Abrams, who made over $40,000 to testify for the father and was removed from the Panel of Forensic Custody Evaluators in disgrace; and Carol Most, who just billed a staggering $270,000 after being removed from the case for gross ethical misconduct.
I hope in death I will accomplish what I could not in life. I hope our legislators, judges, media and others will take notice of the price I am paying today, the horrors of family court, and how the court destroys families in order to profit.
I hope the public will stand up and say “no more.” Your children deserve better. So did mine.
My primary contact is Wayne Baker (federallitigator@gmail.com), should you have anything to share with him and who has all my documents from the divorce case etc. Please don’t let my demise be in vain. Reach out to him to organize yourselves, use the facts of my case (which Wayne also has access to), and make change. Don’t let our children grow up to re-experience this trauma as adults.
All of my materials in support of what I write above are available at this link, which I urge you to share everywhere before Allan finds a way to shut down this Facebook page. Please don’t let the world or my children forget the real Allan who is on the dozens of videos I have posted here on Facebook — please preserve them for my children when they are ready to remember and learn the truth about him. Please stand up against abusers like this who enjoy tormenting others.
For the sake of my children and other mothers who live through this terror of domestic abuse, I ask that you please keep telling my story so that the truth is known far and wide.
Finally, a special thank you to those in my life who always put my children first and who supported me unfailingly: My Mother, Jennifer Culley, Keri Christ, Stephanie Brandt, Jonathan Davidoff, Wayne Baker, Katherine Klein, Katherine Sinsabaugh, Liz Kurtin, Lizzie Harding, Brian McQuillen, Rory Doyle, and my wonderful lawyers Andy Frisch and Evan Wiederkehr.”
Please note Catherine’s drop link box has already been shut down.
Some of it has been preserved here.
Rest in the peace, Catherine. I am so sorry for everything that you and your daughters have endured. Thank you for sharing your story. It is already making a difference. People are seeing how ruthless oathbreakers in the legal profession don’t like the light and need to be held accountable.
What happened to Catherine is happening in courts nationally and globally.
It’s tragic and cruel. Her story did not have to end this way. Her beautiful young daughters should still have their mother today.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record.
IT’S THE OATHBREAKERS.
Please go to How to Legal where I show you how to identify them using legal resources that anyone can use. Apply the same principles in your area and type of court case. All the unethical, two-faced oathbreakers need to be exposed and held accountable before they cause even more harm than they already have.
You are seeing behind their masks, shiny credentials and prestigious awards. I know, it’s not pretty.
Please keep shining the light.
Please keep Catherine’s legacy alive of ripping the masks of the legal professionals who abuse their authority for profit and undermine the integrity of the justice system.
Thank you.
If you or someone you know needs help, hang on …. you are not alone. We are shining the light on the abuse and corruption that is happening in some of the courts and pushing for meaningful accountability. Please call 1-800-273-8255 for the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also text HOME to 741-741 for free, 24-hour support from the Crisis Text Line.
If you need help in Canada, please call 1-833-456-4566 for the Canada Suicide Prevention Service.
Like how I make my videos? You can make them too. Use Invideo templates like I do. Click here and use my Invideo referral link. Invideo will save you a ton of time and their support is off the charts helpful.
Updates: Please follow everyone who is covering Catherine’s story. See for example:
Allan Kassenoff finally responds (through his attorney) to the viral videos of him abusing his wife. pic.twitter.com/4KEIzm1eCX
— Robbie Harvey (@therobbieharvey) June 11, 2023
Amy Polacko, “Allan Kassenoff Resigns After Public Outcry Over Wife Catherine’s Apparent Suicide,” Ms Magazine, June 12, 2023.
“The more I fought to show these materials to the public and to the Courts, the more I was punished for daring to make such accusations against a rich, white man and Greenberg Traurig shareholder. I had to get four different doctors to confirm that, in fact, I did not suffer from any mental illnesses. It was not enough, apparently, that I had no history of mental illness, and had been vetted for much of my adult life by both the state and federal governments when I worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of New York and Special Counsel to the Governor of New York and had never had any episodes or diagnoses of mental condition.
“Over the last 4 years, I was constantly proving and re-proving myself and being discredited and disbelieved by the courts over the man with the agenda to protect his false image, who was willing to lie to cover up the truth about himself, and who was willing to use his children to do so.”
Yup, the same thing happened to me. It didn’t matter how many times I proved or debunked something in my case, opposing counsel and my so-called judges would ignore the evidence and worse …
Frank Parlato: “Washed Up at Greenberg Traurig – Allan Kassenoff ‘Resigns,’” Frank Report, June 11, 2023.
Frank Parlato, “How Lawyer Allan Kassenoff Used Family Court to Prevent Catherine Kassenoff From Seeing Their Children & Who Helped Him ‘Win,’” Frank Report, June 2, 2023.
Frank Parlato, “Turnabout: Videos of Catherine Kassenoff – Taken By Allan, Child, Leaked to FR,” Frank Report, June 14, 2023
Amy Polacko, “Remembering Catherine Kassenoff and Continuing the Fight for Fair U.S. Child Custody Outcomes,” Ms Magazine, June 5, 2023:
Why would a brilliant attorney and mother of three take her own life? Because the dysfunctional U.S. family court system took her kids and drove her—like so many others—over the edge.