PicoBlog

Over the weekend, I received an email which announced the end of the life of Catherine Kassenoff.

This is a story that ends with my own assisted death in Switzerland.  Its lead up has been published for years on Facebook, in Ms. Magazine and in other media.  The New York Court system is responsible for this outcome and should be held accountable for ruining the lives of my children, me, and so many other similarly-situated protective parents (mostly mothers) who have tried to stand up against abuse but were labeled "liars", "mentally ill" and then treated like criminals.  The reason the courts engaged in this horror, where they "temporarily" took away custody, my personal property, a home I owned and lived in, my dogs, my health, my career, and my dignity - for the last 4 years - was so that the nearly $ 4 million that Allan Kassenoff, my ex husband, had to spend to destroy me could be handed out to the court-appointed forensics, therapists, lawyers for the children and the attorney for Kassenoff.  It is a disgrace that persists under the cloak of secrecy and "off the record" court proceedings, secret forensic reports, and ex parte applications and orders.

I was a good and loving mother of three little girls, their primary caregiver, when Allan Kassenoff - with his attorney Gus Dimopoulos - filed for divorce in May 2019.  Many of you on this email knew me in that capacity.  I left a promising career trajectory to raise my girls to be violinists, tennis players, and to be happy, well-adjusted and empathic human beings.  But Allan was troubled.  In May 2019, he was the subject of abuse allegations made by two of my girls to their schools when one of them claimed he kicked her.  He had abused our family for years, especially during the years I was recovering from breast cancer (which I had twice already - in 2008 and again in 2017), some of which was captured on videos that I have posted on my public Facebook page and now make available in the Dropbox link below.  Rather than get help he needed, he retaliated with a divorce filing in which he accused me of "manipulating" our daughters to make up abuse that never happened.  

Except that it did happen - over and over again.  This Dropbox link contains the numerous videos, the police testimony, the therapists' reports, the third party letters and affidavits, the medical reports of injuries and much more showing exactly how abusive Allan Kassenoff is.  

Allan Kassenoff, according to several videos, is every bit the monster that Catherine describes.

Meanwhile, Catherine does not fit the profile of someone who would end up on the short end of a nasty divorce.

She’s a former federal prosecutor who also worked in the New York Governor’s Office.

None of this experience helped her in any way. See below, an interview with Catherine from late 2021, starting at thirty-five minutes in.

Catherine married an attorney, Allan Kassenoff: a litigator even. He practiced in the same courthouse where their divorce would play out.

He had all the right connections, and there is a playbook in Westchester County, New York, where their divorce was held.

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We’ve seen this playbook before with Liz Weinstein.

The playbook goes something like this. Litigators use their connections to get ex-parte orders to remove their exes from their homes, they then get ex-parte orders for sole custody, while engineering false arrests. Here’s part of Liz’s story.

The writ of certiorari alleges a vast conspiracy involving the courts, medical professionals, municipal employees, and police.

"In January 2021, after publicly advocating against restrictions, pedophilia and government tyranny, Elizabeth Harding Weinstein, Petitioner, was denied the services of her local government, imprisoned in solitary confinement because Petitioner could not medically tolerate a mask and remained there for seven weeks by Defendant Howard T. Code. 

"After release, Petitioner filed a federal 1873 claim pro so. Defendant Judge Code retaliated, instantly had Petitioner falsely imprisoned again, absent of criminal charges, and involuntarily committed by judicial order, in clear violation of Mental Health Hygiene laws, where she, a woman on no medications her whole life, was gruesomely forced a litany of medications by judicial order of related Judge Anne E Minihan.

"Once released, Petitioner was issued an ex-parte, ex-post facto 'order' by related judge Nancy Quinn-Koba, then immediately falsely arrested for alleged violations of unserved 'order' by Defendant Officers, and given new orders by related Judge Stuart A. Halper.

"Since advocating, Petitioner, who was a stay at home mom for seventeen years, has been denied, by judicial orders: any direct access to her children; access to her home; access to all her finances; access to her belongings, all while being denied due process and access to the court in any case Petitioner is a litigant, including in Federal Court.

Catherine faced something similar.

Gus Dimopoulos is a predator who helps to get the judges of Westchester County elected - judges like Nancy Koba and Lewis Lubell, both of whom presided over my case and the latter of whom recused himself in November 2021, citing to "strong support for his recusal" in the record.  (See 11/29/21 transcript).  On September 15, 2021, (see attached transcript), Judge Lubell repeatedly threatened me with incarceration and an arrest warrant, as well as an attorney grievance, the first time I had ever "dared" to request to appear remotely in his courtroom or reschedule the appearance, due to work obligations.  He even told me to "get help."  By contrast, he and other judges routinely allowed Allan Kassenoff to reschedule conferences, to absent himself entirely from conferences, and to appear remotely.  Judge Lubell did all of this a few weeks after (1) Abrams was removed from the Panel (see 8/24/221 letter) and (2) he presided over Abrams' wedding at his house (see photos).  I received these photos of Lubell from an anonymous tipster who had been following my saga on Facebook.  

Dimopoulos also uses the police departments in Westchester County to make arrests of his adversaries.  Exactly this happened to me, despite never having a brush with the law in my entire life.  In July 2020, Dimopoulos asked for - and got from Judge Koba - an ex parte temporary order of protection ("TOP") in favor of the children (who had been put in their abusive father's custody based on the forensic report of Abrams). He alleged that I had to be subjected to a TOP because I posted on Facebook a photo of living out of my car, after being removed from my home by virtue of the ex parte eviction order he had obtained in March 2020.  He didn't stop there.  For the next several years, he obtained TOP after TOP on an ex parte basis.  All of them were vacated and none was ever converted to a permanent order of protection.  I chronicle this abusive pattern, enabled by Judges Lubell and Koba (who were running mates in their election to the Supreme Court), in the attached complaint I filed earlier this year in N.Y. County.   The most egregious example of misuse of TOPs against me was when Allan and Dimopoulos obtained a "one mile stay away" order, on an ex parte basis, in September 2021 requiring me to vacate my own apartment in Larchmont and live in the basements and on the couches of friends - without so much as a hearing.  There were no allegations of violence or threats to justify this TOP - which Allan obtained by lying.  There were just Allan Kassenoff's false ex parte claims and a corrupt judiciary  willing to accommodate him.  This was financial and retaliatory - for my exposure of Abrams just weeks prior.

In the same time frame that Lubell and Dimopoulos (with the encouragement of Most) implemented the ex parte TOPs against me, they deprived me of all contact with my children.  From June 2021 to March 2022 I was treated as more dangerous than a sex offender, a violent felon, a drug addict, an alcoholic or a mental patient in that I could "temporarily" have no contact with my own kids.  I was denied Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays - everything.  No reasons were offered except that I was now subject to ex parte TOPs.  At the same time, I was working at Special Counsel to the governor, as I had been for the preceding nearly 7 years.  I was also cut off from speaking with the therapists that Carol Most had hand-selected for my children (after removing them from the prior therapists who had been agreed upon by me and Allan), Susan Adler and Carolyn McGuffog, both PsyDs, who were paid at the astronomical rate of $600 and $450/hour respectively.  These were "reprogramming" therapists who allowed the children's father to sit in on their sessions in order to suppress the girls from raising abuse by him.  Despite a recorded call in September 2021 with Adler and her own emails in which she worried about Charlotte not seeing me for so long, she advocated against Charlotte having contact with me.  She and McGuffog took instructions from Carol Most.  McGuffog went so far as to suggest that Ally would need a "therapeutic boarding school" after she ran to my home twice in 2021, mischaracterizing Ally as a truant rather than a victim of domestic abuse by her father.  Nauseatingly, McGuffog even told Ally that she "had to pick" between me and her in her young patient's life.   Adler and McGuffog made close to $100,000 from their so-called "therapy" of my children.  Even after I sued Adler, which case is going forward on fraudulent inducement grounds in Westchester County, McKay interviewed her (and McGuffog) for her report.

Gus Dimopoulos is Allan’s attorney, and he seems like he is part of a ring in this courthouse.

Catherine isn’t the only story. There are a group of others impacted by the same judges and the same corrupt attorney (Gus Dimopolous). My divorce case currently mirrors Catherine’s - parenting alienation, abuse, false police reports, multiple attempts at arrests, secret payoffs to neutral court appointed forensics, unchecked perjury, and more. 

Dimopolous is at the center of it all. He is ruining lives and using the courts and police to do it. 

In Catherine’s case, Dimopoulos used another common tactic: the parental alienation label.

Accusing her of “manipulating” the girls to make up abuse that never happened, Allan brought an ex-parte to kick Catherine out of their house and grant him temporary custody of the children.

Allan knew about parental alienation. He could hand-pick texts and emails to make her look like an alienator and exclude those that made him look like an abuser. Attached to Allan’s supporting papers were screenshots of text messages between Catherine and her attorney Monaco discussing legal strategy.

Allan’s affidavit included 11 select text messages from September 2018. Some were undated.

The judge granted his ex-parte application. Catherine was removed from the home. The judge granted Allan custody of the children.

As Catherine battled her ex, Dimopoulos, and the court system, she was battline and even tougher opponent: cancer.

She is a two-time survivor of breast cancer: 2008 and 2017.

The cancer was back and this time she lost the battle.

Catherine went to Switzerland for an assisted suicide. One of her friends shared this with me.

Yes, although there is no official confirmation provided, I can say with a high degree of assurance that she has passed.  I have received so many responses, I sent out a mass email to all that responded, including many woman who suffered similar plights in fighting for custody of their children.

Check out the recent story from Westchester 12.

I reached out to Allan and Gus but they never responded. Then again, you could say I wasn’t really looking for a response. Here’s my latest email to Allan.

Westchester family court activist apparently dies by assisted suicide during battle for kids, cancer diagnosis (news12.com) You look good in this one. I'm kidding. You look like a monster. 

You have no more power over Catherine. This will trail you for the rest of your life. Everywhere you go you will wonder if people know. Soon, people will know it all. 

On the other hand, Blaise Gomez, the Westchester 12 reporter, also reached out to Allan and Gus, and I am sure she was far more professional. They didn’t respond to her either.

Allan’s employer Greenberg Traurig LLP has announced that he is taking a leave of absence.

On June 14, 2023, the Frank Report released audio and video of Catherine acting abusively. Find that here. Here is part of one.

Catherine Kassanoff: At the top of the page – write. Now! I have work to do!  Take a deep breath (to wailing child). Shut up. Shut up. Now. Enough! She needs discipline. She needs absolute discipline. Sit down and write. I’m going to take a picture to send her teacher.  Relax. Just relax. I want her teacher to see this nonsense. what I should have told the […] that your father is interested in divorce. So he will say whatever he wants to make you think things, and he will try to make it so that I’m the bad guy. You do something bad and look what happened. You try to get other people in trouble! “Mommy Mommy she’s so weird.” You’re weird. You know that?

Child: [Stil wailing] I know that because you say it all the time.

Catherine Kassanoff: Oh yeah? And you cut me off her don’t you. You cut me out of here. Ally, did daddy call you a moron? Has daddy ever called you a moron? Did daddy call you a moron? Has daddy ever called you a moron, Ally? Hey Ally, has daddy ever called you a moron? Has daddy ever called you a moron? Did daddy call you a moron? Has daddy ever called you a moron? Say yes to the camera.

[Child wailing, Catherine and Allan yelling]

Catherine Kassanoff: She’s a moron! Did you tell her she’s a moron? Did you?  I have tried so hard to get you to a […] […] and I want you her write an essay and you won’t let me […]

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