The Westchester, New York divorce and custody case, Kassenoff v Kassenoff, began in 2019, and has dragged on through four judges, two court-appointed forensic custody evaluators, four court-appointed attorneys for the children, and numerous court-appointed therapists.
According to court records, the husband Allan Kassenoff made from $800k to $1 million annually, representing some of the biggest corporate clients in the world in patent infringement cases for the law firm of Greenberg Traurig.
His wife, the mother of their three children, Catherine Kassenoff, made $170,000 per year as special counsel for the office of a subcabinet ethics committee for the New York Governor.
She lost her job in 2022 after Allan persuaded Larchmont police to arrest her for violating a protective order. To secure her arrest, Allan and his attorney, Constantine ‘Gus’ Dimipoulus, had to mislead the Larchmont police that a legal protective order existed when it did not.
The charges against Catherine were false, but it took two months for Catherine to prove it. Long before that, Allan allegedly was quick to get word to the governor’s ethics committee, and Catherine was promptly fired.
Because Allan earned much more than Catherine, he paid most of the court-appointed experts. It turned out to be an advantage, since in family court they always follow the golden rule:”He who has the gold, rules.”
With the advantage of money, Allan got full custody of the couple’s three children.
The experts – all billing by the hour – paid by Allan – were united in their recommendation that Allan should get custody, and Catherine supervised visits, or better still, no visits with her children.
Over the three years, that Allan had custody of the children, Catherine alleges that he successfully alienated them from her, their mother.
According to Catherine, in what was her final Facebook post, Allan spent well over $3 million on the case. She claims Allan paid his attorney, Constantine ‘Gus’ Dimopolous, at least $2 million over the last four years.
According to court records, the “neutral” experts cost Allan at least $500,000 more.
On top of that, Allan paid Catherine $885,000 in court-ordered payments during the pendency of the case.
Allan fought hard and paid big to win custody of his children.
On May 27, on Facebook, Catherine announced she planned to commit suicide with assistance at a facility in Switzerland later that day. FR was first to report it.
FR has not confirmed she followed through with her suicide plan. No one has reported hearing from her since.
Yet her announcement garnered a lot of attention and caused Allan to leave his position at Greenberg Traurig on a leave of absence. It is unclear if he will return.
About two months before Catherine announced her suicide, Allan wrote an email to her about the children and the ruinous sum of money she forced him to spend out of love for his children.
March 19, 2023,
Allen to Catherine…
Catherine
You must really be proud of yourself for financially decimating me and the children. But make no mistake, no one is fooled Catherine; everyone knows that your goal is to destroy me and you don’t care what that means to the children.
You have sued me (and Gus) three times; you have tried to get me disbarred; you have tried to get me fired; you have reported me (repeatedly) to the police and District Attorney’s office; you have ridiculed and attacked me and embarrassed the kids on Facebook. And you know what? I’m still here and I’m still standing.
You have done all of this in hopes that I would give up and stop trying to protect the children from you. I won’t. Even if this court awards you my last dollar, I will never stop protecting them. Until the day I die.
If I lose my house, so be it. If I go bankrupt, so be it. I will do everything and anything to take care of the kids and protect them. You know why?
Because I love my children more than you could ever love anybody.
All you know is hate and vengeance. I feel sorry for you, and while at times I might become angry and frustrated, at the end of the day I pity you because your behavior has ruined your life and your relationship with the kids.
Instead of focusing on getting help, you have focused your rage on destroying me. For that, I’m sad for you because you will never get a chance to have these years back. Even if you succeed and take every last dollar I have, I will still have my children’s love and I will move forward in life knowing that I gave everything I had to protect them.
Allan
FR Artwork
From time to time, Frank Report will accept art from various artists and have one of our art critics give readers insight into the themes presented.
“Allan” by Marie White
Unveiling the Dark Layers: Marie White’s Thought-Provoking Portrait of Allan
By Quentin Dupont, Art Critic
In her latest masterpiece, artist Marie White skillfully captures the essence of a man whose manipulative tactics have boomeranged. White’s brushstrokes expertly bring out Allan as an astute legal practitioner, employing the phrase “mommy is a dead duck,” to describe victory over the mother of his children.
Yet the true narrative of this artwork emerges in the backdrop of his divorce and custody dispute with Allan standing on the precipice of losing everything, when all he wanted was for his wife to lose everything, and of him also becoming the dead duck he wanted her to be.
Through her masterful composition, Marie White invites viewers to reflect on the repercussions that arise when we start to dig a grave for others, but fail to dig one for ourselves, and how one’s actions have a way of reverberating back with potent force, ultimately unraveling the very fabric of deceit itself.
