Stunning tale of NY mom who planned her own suicide to torment her family — setting loose TikTok trolls long after she was dead

The matriarch of a successful Westchester legal family died by assisted suicide to torture her ex-husband and their children after she was accused of abusing her adopted daughter, her ex now says.

And to make sure her wrath outlived her, Catherine Kassenoff posted a trove of documents and videos online — setting lose a torrent of TikTok trolls and social media influencers who tormented her family.

Catherine, who made herself the star of this stunning story, was a prominent attorney who once served as special counsel to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Allan Kassenoff told The Free Press that Catherine spent years crafting a false narrative in which she was an innocent victim — and he was the evil husband.

“In my eyes, Catherine went through with her suicide in order to destroy me and the children,” Allan told The Post.

He also said she was successful in achieving her alleged goal because of the emotional toll her medically assisted suicide continues to inflict on him and their family.

Following an eight-month investigation, the Free Press detailed a litany claims after speaking to Allan, her former psychiatrist, former nannies and other sources who described Catherine as everything from “very calm” to a “psychopath” and “terrifying.”

On May 27, 2023, the Westchester, mother of three announced in a shocking letter on Facebook she was scheduled to die by assisted suicide in Switzerland later that day.

In the post, Catherine wrote that she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, but decided to end her life due to Allan’s alleged abuse and a “predatory” court system that began keeping her away from the couple’s three daughters in 2018.

“It is with a profound heartbreak … that I am writing my last post ever. Today, I will be ending my own life … In the last four years of my life I have woken up every day to a nightmare like no other,” she wrote in her public suicide note.

A Westchester family court decision had cut her off from contact with her three daughters, ages 9, 12, and 13.

“I cannot survive this torment and the grief that comes from such a prolonged separation from my children,” she continued.

“The court system did this to me … It is a predatory system that functions in darkness — through ‘gag orders’ like the one in my case, through a publicly-inaccessible docket, through a closed courtroom, and through ex parte ‘temporary’ orders that are in place for years.”

Catherine’s final Facebook message included a Dropbox link that contained thousands of court filings and numerous legal documents, medical records, and videos — including the videos that were later picked up by TikTokers who accused Allan of abusing her.

Kentucky convicted felon kills 4, injures 3 at birthday party before fatally shooting himself

She claimed that the contents of these files proved she did nothing wrong and maintained that her children were taken away as a result of “unfair rulings” “a disgraced custody evaluator,” a money-motivated attorney for the children, and the court favoring the “monied party.”

In her suicide note, she begged readers: “Don’t let my death be in vain.”

Allan — a prominent lawyer in his own right — has repeatedly denied all allegations of abuse and claimed Catherine’s allegations were vexatious.

“She used to call the police on a weekly basis,” he told The Free Press, but they never filed charges. “Each time it was more nonsensical than the time before. But she was trying to build a case. Do you see what I mean? She’s a lawyer. She’s very conniving and scheming.”

Speaking to The Post, Allan said Catherine “did not have terminal cancer”.

“I called her oncologist,” he said. “He said she last came in for a checkup and had a clear bill of health.”

During their custody battle, Allan accused Catherine of trying to “destroy” him, according to emails made public by Catherine.

“Even if this court awards you my last dollar, I will never stop protecting them,” Allan wrote Catherine in an email on March 19 . “Until the day I die.”

Video previously posted on social media showed Allan yelling at Catherine, saying he hated her and deriding the mother of his children as a “fat, old loser” in another clip.

In another disturbing clip, a young girl can be heard crying in the background as Allan says he refuses to take his daughter to school: “Take your daughter. I’m not taking her. She’s spoiled and I’m not taking her. She will be punished by not going today.”

He continues about his daughter: “I’m not dealing with her anymore. I will no longer take her to activities over the weekend. I will no longer do nice things for her. She will be treated the way everyone else is.”

The videos now have millions of views on TikTok, which influencer Robbie Harvey used to accuse Allan of verbal and emotional abuse toward Catherine and their daughters.

Some observers were quick to blast the attorney.

“Hey, Allan Kassenoff — we are all the voice of Catherine,” one tweet read . “Buckle up you POS, the videos of your cruelty, abuse and manipulation are going super viral.”

Allan’s former employer said no judges or court-appointed forensic evaluators involved in the couple’s lengthy trials found evidence of domestic violence as alleged by his ex-wife, however he was forced to step down with a severance package or be fired, following an internal investigation.

“The firm has concluded its review of the situation to determine Allan Kassenoff’s status with the firm,” a statement from the law firm read .

Death of Hollywood actor’s daughter ruled suicide — her parents are desperate to prove otherwise

“Our primary obligation is to maintain and protect the core values and best interests of our firm, our clients, our lawyers and our professional staff.”

On Friday, Harvey issued a groveling apology to Allan in a video posted on TikTok and appeared to have completely flipped on his previous position after the attorney sued him over his “false” statements.

Harvey told viewers he had reviewed the documents uploaded by Catherine, along with others provided by Allan that he did not previously have. He said they explained “what happened in his marriage”.

“Upon discussion with Allan, I’ve decided to take down my videos about the Kassenoff story… because there are errors in the videos I posted,” he explained.

“In my videos I made some mistakes in the reporting of the story which was a result of not having all the information available to me because Catherine did not provide a complete record of what was happening.

“I apologize to Allan. I apologize to the Kassenoff children for any harm I have caused.”

Perhaps the most startling allegations in the Free Press report are about Catherine’s abuse of the pair’s oldest daughter, Ally, whom they adopted in 2009.

Less than a year later, Catherine got pregnant and welcomed their second daughter, Charley, in February 2011. She had a third girl, JoJo, in August 2013.

In 2019, Allan submitted to the court recordings of Catherine berating Ally, calling her a “moron” and a “complete idiot,” yelling at her for stealing a chocolate bar from Catherine’s bedroom, telling her, “You will go to jail if you keep this up.”

Four of the children’s nannies told The Free Press that Catherine strongly favored her two biological daughters—at the expense of their adopted daughter.

Kim Hull, who worked as a live-in nanny for the family in 2009 when Ali was a baby, claimed that Catherine instructed her to keep the child awake all day by dripping water on her head, so that she would sleep through the night, according to the report.

Hull said she refused and noted that she also found marks on the baby’s back that looked like they’d been caused by fingernails digging into skin.

She claimed she took Ally to the doctor, but never reported Catherine because she “terrified” her.

Celine Dublanchet, who became the Kassenoffs’ au pair in October 2016, made equally disturbing allegations about Catherine.

According to court documents, Dublanchet said Catherine once locked Ally, then 7, in the basement by herself for two hours as a punishment.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR METRO DAILY NEWSLETTER

On another occasion, Catherine made the child go outside alone after dark to “clean the garden” in the middle of winter, The Free Press reports.

Dublanchet claimed that Ally slept on a mattress on the floor in her room, while the other two children slept in Catherine’s bed every night.

Ally was forced to make her mother’s bed, according to the nanny.

“Ally was Cinderella,” Dublanchet later wrote to the court, “her two sisters Anastasia and Drizella, and Catherine the horrible stepmother.”

Another nanny, Mylene Gry, lived in the Kassenoffs’ home from 2015 to 2016. She claimed that Catherine screamed at Ally “for almost 10 minutes after she misbehaved—she said things such as ‘You will never have friends’ and ‘You will never succeed in life or get married and have your own kids.’ ”

“What I witnessed in my 13 months working for the Kassenoffs has troubled me to this day,” Gry later wrote to the court in June 2019, when the couple was fighting for custody of the children.

“I believe Catherine is a mentally ill and abusive person.”

In Catherine’s parting statement, she wrote, “Their father has spent years and millions of dollars — over $3 million — to eliminate me from our girls’ lives … He will never relent … 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.”

However, Colin Brewer, the famed psychiatrist who signed off on Catherine’s suicide request, revealed to the Free Press that Catherine’s death was originally scheduled for October 2022 — months before she lost all access to her children.

But, it was postponed twice “for administrative reasons.”

Brewer, an assisted suicide advocate who penned the 2015 book , I’ll See Myself Out, Thank You , said she never seemed anything but competent.

“She was always very calm,” he added. “She got naturally a bit exasperated when talking about her husband.”

She was, he said, “very clear about what she wanted to do and why she wanted to do it.”

Brewer said Catherine told him she had cancer but it was not the reason she provided for wanting to die. Instead, she gave an “unusual” explanation.

“It was not something that troubled her, because she wasn’t planning to be around long enough for it to cause trouble,” he added.

“She was just concerned that she had been treated abominably by her husband.”

He said Catherine’s death was an “existential assisted suicide.”

Such suicides are the result of people feeling, he said, “that they have failed to achieve something very important or that something very important is being destroyed.”

For the latest metro stories, top headlines, breaking news and more, visit nypost.com/metro/