Catherine Kassenoff Pens Heartbreaking Facebook Post Revealing Plan To Die By Assisted Suicide after terminal cancer diagnosis
A mother-of-three and former special counsel to the governor of New York is believed to have killed herself by assisted suicide in Switzerland after being diagnosed with cancer for the third time and accusing her ex of abuse.
Catherine Kassenoff, 54, of Westchester, took to Facebook on May 27 to pen a heartbreaking note where she announced she would be ‘ending my own life.’
‘It is with profound heartbreak, that I hope none of your ever experience, that I am writing my last post ever. Today, I will be ending my own life,’ she wrote in a now-deleted post. ‘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… I have also endured the emotional devastation of being without my children for so long…’
Kassenoff has recently been diagnosed with her third round of cancer and this time it was terminal. In addition to the vicious disease, she allegedly was suffering abuse from her husband Allan, who she captured on video throwing tantrums, calling her a ‘fat, old loser,’ and who allegedly threatened to release a video of her in her underwear on YouTube.
She released thousands of court documents, alongside the videos, in a down defunct Dropbox link in her Facebook farewell.
‘Perhaps if I had the physical endurance to keep going, I would. But with a new terminal health issue that will soon be limited my physical strength as well, and with no protection from the courts, I cannot keep running from Allan,’ the late mother, whose death certificate will take up to six weeks to process, wrote.
The mother-of-three said she was not strong enough to go through ‘debilitating chemo, surgeries, and radiation again.’
Kassenoff said she kept her health secrets under wraps because her husband would have ‘tried that much harder to end my existence.’
Allan, who works for law firm Greenberg Traurig, is currently under an investigation by the company and has taken a ‘voluntary leave of absence to focus on his family,’ despite multiple judge ruling he had not done anything wrong.
However, Kassenoff’s videos paint a different picture. The father-of-three was seen in one of the videos standing at the foot of the bed telling his then-wife: ‘I hate you, Catherine, I hate you. I regret every moment of my life that I met you.’
Other videos show Allan allegedly screaming behind doors, yelling at his children to ‘shut up,’ and dramatically leaving their home and refuses to take care of his little ones.
One heartbreaking video that Kassenoff shared showed one of her daughters crying that she doesn’t ‘want to go with that crazy guy.’
The court had designated Allan as the primary parent and Kassenoff accused of him doing everything possible to keep her away from their three daughters – aged nine, 12, and 13 – including several attempts at having her arrested.
She claimed in her Facebook post that Allan had made a false 911 call, claiming she was ‘capable of “killing” him or my own children.’
He reportedly filmed her being questioned by police, who ultimately did not arrest her after they determined ‘realized he was lying,’ she claimed.
‘This is how I’ve been living for years,’ the former special counsel to Kathy Hochul wrote. ‘Like a hunted animal, worried about when Allan will make the next false report. He sees all of this as a game and the court does not stop him…’
She had been arrested in January 2022 for reportedly violating a protective order by approaching her daughter. In result, she was let go from the governor’s office. The charges were later dismissed.
She claimed the courts took away her children, her home, her dogs, and her life savings.
‘Their father has spent years and millions of dollars — over $3million — 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,’ she said.
However, Allan’s lawyer, Gus Dimopoulous, told the New York Post: ‘At every stage of this four-year custody dispute, the court system has acted responsibly and thoroughly.
Following a neutral forensic evaluator’s assessment, the court ordered an immediate order granting their father sole legal and physical custody.
The court also issued an urgent order of protection against Ms. Kassenoff eliminating unsupervised interactions with the children based on what they observed when they were with their mother.
‘While it is always difficult limiting a parent’s access to their children, given the circumstances of this case, it was found to be in the best interest of the children to take these steps urgently. The children have been in our client’s care for three and a half years and they are safe and healthy.’
Kassenof also accused her ex-husband and his team of telling her children to hate her, telling Ms. magazine: ‘My children have been diagnosed with various serious mental health conditions as a result of this trauma. They have been told to hate me, to call me “Catherine” instead of “mom.”‘
In an email, filed in the New York court system, shows one of her daughters emailing her: ‘Momma, I hung up on Doctor Alder because she is annoying and she said you were dangerous. I hate her and I don’t want Shira to replace you and I miss you and love you so much.’
A vigil was held for Kassenoff on Monday at the Stanz Cafe in Larchmont, New York, where friends, advocates, and mothers gathered to honor her.