This is another in our series on Kassenoff v. Kassenoff in the New York State Supreme Court in Westchester County.
The case began in 2019 and is still active – though Catherine Kassenoff may be deceased.
At the time of the divorce filing, Allan and Catherine had three children: Ally, Charlotte, and Josephina, ages 10, 8, and 5.
Allan made around $1 million per year as a partner with Greenberg Traurig – the 8th largest law firm in the USA – and had a reputation as one of the premier patent lawyers in America.
Catherine earned about $170,000 as an attorney in the Office of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
New York State Supreme Court Justice David F. Everett was the initial presiding judge in the divorce case.
The Court appointed Carol Most as the attorney for the children and, on her recommendation, appointed psychologist Dr. Marc Abrams to perform a ‘neutral’ forensic custody evaluation to determine custody of the children.
The Court ordered Allan to pay 80 percent of Dr. Abrams’ fees, and Catherine to pay 20 percent.
On March 25, 2020, Dr. Abrams issued his custody report finding “parental alienation.”
Dr. Abrams said Catherine was “gaslighting” the girls to imagine their father Allan abused them.
He also said Catherine appeared to have an “unspecified” personality disorder.
Catherine worked at the Department of Justice, and during the immediate aftermath of 9-11, she was on the ground in NYC doing terrorism investigations.
She obtained top security clearance, which screened for instability or dishonesty. She was vetted again in 2015 when she went to work for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Catherine’s therapist, psychiatrist Dr. Anna Filova, MD, also did not diagnose any psychopathology and went on the record to say so.
On March 27, 2020, Judge Lewis Lubell, following Dr. Abrams’ recommendation, ordered Catherine evicted from her home and granted Allan full custody of the children.
Catherine could see her children only if a court-approved supervisor was present to watch and listen to everything said.
Allan paid Dr. Abrams $32,000 for his evaluation.
More than a year passed.
During that time, the attorney for the children, Carol Most, arranged for the court to appoint Dr. Susan Adler and Dr. Carolyn McGuffog, as therapists for the children.
Allan paid them.
Attorney Most required the therapists to breach the usual standard of care in treating children by ordering them not to speak to one of the parents – Catherine.
In court, Allan, his lawyer Constantine Gus Dimopoulus and AFC Most expressed a dramatic concern for the children’s emotional and physical safety should they see their mother alone, prompting Judge Lubell to rule that Catherine should not be alone with the children, not even for five minutes!
During the summer of 2021, Catherine filed a complaint against Dr. Abrams with the Office of Attorneys for Children and the Mental Health Professionals Certification Committee. She alleged misconduct, including a false diagnosis of her mental health, minimizing domestic abuse by Allan, his financial alignment with Allan, sexually harassing her and other women, and, based on Facebook posts, misogynistic behavior and gender bias.
On August 24, 2021, the Certification Committee removed Dr. Abrams from the Panel of Forensic Custody Evaluators – based on Catherine’s complaint.
After the Committee disqualified Dr. Abrams, the Court appointed Dr. Kathleen McKay for a second custody evaluation. In the interim, Dr. Abrams’ recommendation of no unsupervised contact between Catherine and her children remained in effect.
Catherine began to see Dr. Stephanie Brandt, a board-certified adult and child psychiatrist, formerly a custody evaluator, for weekly psychotherapy sessions.
According to Dr. Brandt, Catherine expressed great concern for the well-being of her children. She wanted to understand the impact of what seemed like an organized family court conspiracy against her as a parent and professional.
Dr. McKay worked on her forensic evaluation for more than a year. Dr. McKay saw Catherine with the oldest girl, Ally, but never had a parent-child visit with Catherine and her two younger children.
After several meetings with Catherine, Dr. McKay cut off communications with her, though she continued to see Allan for 17 appointments.
During that time, Catherine continued to visit her children under the supervision of social worker Jennifer Culley, who made reports to the Court about each visit.
Culley’s reports described ongoing rapprochement with Catherine and her children.
However, Culley reported that when Allan or anyone from his team was present at the visit, the children verbally abused their mother, showed disrespect, or acted afraid of her.
However, when Allan wasn’t there or anyone from his team who could report back to him, the children showed they were attached and unafraid of their mother.
On April 6, 2023, Dr. McKay interviewed Catherine’s psychiatrist, Dr. Brandt, by phone as part of her custody evaluation.
Dr. McKay began by saying she had never seen anyone ‘file so many motions’ as Catherine did in her divorce and custody litigation – implying this was a form of mental illness.
Dr. Brandt replied Catherine won most of the latest motions and asked why filing motions was an indication of anything but resilience and persistence in the face of what was, for her, a disaster – the loss of her children.
Dr. McKay did not answer.
Dr. Brandt said she thought Catherine had symptoms of PTSD and experienced panic attacks, which are part of this syndrome.
Dr. McKay said, “But no one else said that!”
Dr. Brandt responded, “Well, I am her doctor, who would have done that – and why does that matter anyway?”
Dr. McKay ended the call after about 15 minutes.
Dr. McKay’s custody report came out in the first week of May 2023. She wrote that Catherine should never see her children with or without a supervisor.
Even if the judge did not agree and allowed Catherine to see her children with a supervisor, Dr. McKay wanted Culley removed.
Culley’s reports did not support McKay’s goal of eliminating Catherine from the children’s lives. To the contrary, Culley reported that the children’s attachment to their mother persisted despite the pressure Allan put on them to reject her.
But Dr. McKay told the court that the two younger children did not want to ever see their mother and were afraid of her. The oldest was coerced to ‘like’ her mother, and her attachment was inauthentic.
Dr. McKay added that under no circumstances should the children ever see a psychiatrist – like Dr. Brandt – for therapy; the children needed dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), provided by a psychologist.
Based on Dr. McKay’s report, Judge Susan Capeci suspended all of Catherine’s visits with her children.
Shocked by this outcome, Dr. Brandt wrote to Judge Capeci, on May 9, 2023.
Dear Judge Capeci,
To be clear, it is well known that actively destroying an attachment to a parent is harmful to a child’s development.
Speaking as Ms. Kassenoff’s physician, it is also extraordinarily traumatic to her as a parent who has never been judged as mentally ill, unfit nor dangerous, except by unproven allegations that are part of this litigation.
…I know of no premorbid disorder, nor did any other clinician who examined her, other than the disqualified Dr. Abrams…
I do not know why Dr. McKay’s opinion of Ms. Kassenoff is so negative, but I can say that as her doctor, and with access to collateral sources such as the reports of supervised visitation and prior evaluations, I do believe that Dr. McKay is simply incorrect…
I do not find any psychopathology in Ms. Kassenoff unless you consider symptoms of PTSD- a response to a major stressor — to be a disorder. I have heard nothing that makes me concerned about her judgment. That she is an intense woman, and very upset and angry at what has occurred should be no surprise and is certainly no measure of a disturbance…
It is beyond me to understand how [McKay] can discredit my opinion, and the observations of Ms. Culley. We are the ONLY people who have had regular ongoing contact with Ms. Kassenoff, and Ms. Culley has seen her with her children many times…
And there can be no realistic reason for them to be afraid of her that I know, and it seems that they are not.
It is a fabricated inference based on [McKay’s] assumptions about the mother and not based on any data…
This absurd theory supports her idea that these children need to be ‘protected’ from some unknown psychological harm that Ms. Kassenoff presents.
To my knowledge, this is not based on any verifiable facts and should not be credited as anything but a narrative about this family that demonizes the mother and deprives the child of her.
To forcibly remove a parent from a child’s life is the worst possible outcome of this case. These children have a mother. Why on earth are they being treated as if she is a danger to them?
There is no basis for that besides a disqualified forensic, an angry husband’s allegations of mental illness by a lawyer, not a qualified professional, and now what sounds like a grossly distorted 100-page forensic report that reflects cherry picked data to ‘prove’ that Ms. Kassenoff must be so disturbed that she should lose her parental rights…
I do hope that the Court will reconsider this order ending Ms. Kassenoff s contact with her children. Destroying the attachment to a parent is one of the worst things that can occur to any child.
That is a bedrock principle of all developmental science.… I hope the Court does not enable this. No child should be taught to hate and fear their mother. And most certainly not-one as competent and loving as Ms. Kassenoff. Destroying a parent-child relationship that is not dangerous nor abusive is a recipe for eventual psychopathology in all three children…
On May 27, Catherine announced she was in Switzerland for assisted suicide. No one has reported hearing from her since.
Based on the bad publicity surrounding him, Greenberg Traurig accepted Allan’s resignation from his $1 million per year position in June.
Taking care of Maya. Another example of a woman falsely accused and labeled as a harm to her child. . Despite to seek help for her sick child. This is the same situation women get themselves in trying to save their children from abuse. The mother looked crazy in that case too. She also took own life from the pressure. Doctors out side the system testifed on her behalf. They only listen to the doctor for the system. It’s worth watching to see how the system is not working for children and parents. Slightly different but all the same issues that happen in a custody battle.
Where is the death certificate? Once there is proof of her death, that will change things a bit. Has anyone anymore info on this. Those poor girls have no idea if their mother is dead or alive. That truly is child abuse.
Exactly why is it taking so long to get proof that she is actually deceased.
Maybe those who harmed her want to take from her daughters everything she left for them.
This whole thing smells lie a hoax
ZIP it flying monkey. The lawyers are trying to make it iron clad. You and Allan don’t receive death benefits. The money is for the girls after they age out of the two of you guys control. Where are the charges for custodial interference in the first degree? On behalf of the children. She is guilty of interfering with the custody matter.
Seriously, did someone kill Catherine? Like, the FB suicide isn’t real. It’s probably a killer got to her and faked her suicide
I thought of that as a possibility too. That’s why it is so important that it is confirmed that she went to Switzerland (or not).
Oh jeez! It was the boston strangler.
Ya and the earth is flat too. Duh
Cathrine is about as worthy as George Floyd being a marty
Disagree – +1 for George Floyd – he never tried to claim martyrdom
Agree.
You cannot have a government who can murder a citizen for using a fake 20 dollar bill. Really? This Catherine con artist has no correlation with the George Floyd story.
If the United States government is at all interested in investing the family court system and the unsafe practices in the family law courts. A good place to start would be at UConn department of human health and services. The fatherhood initiative. This is the leader in creating gender bias information. Where much of the deflimation of character of women in the untitled states is coming from. Where the breeding ground for hatered towards women is escalated . The parental alienation industry and the AFCC is created a cancer in the court system. Fanck has already provided much information. Very questionable conduct of the Connecticut AFCC. Situations for children and women. Connecticut has a domestic violence problem that is not being addressed. Women and children are dying. Unconn may be a good place to start. Breeding ground for misinformation and breeding a narrative against women throughout the country. Casting a lot of misinformation about the mental health of women looking nuts and crazy when they are infact being abused. Diana Ditunno is the wife of Joseph Ditunno. Diana is running the fatherhood initiative. Joseph is the head of family services. He’s also involved with the violent offender program. Once on the board of the Ccadv. This power couple in the family court system is worth a look at. The state of Connecticut is full of power couples with a vested interest in the state financially. All receiving funds for the fatherhood initiative. If the government is at all interested in a balance count system geared to the well being of children.. please investigate. There may be a big problem here.
When will UCONN have a plan for oversight and accountability for family court judges, lawyers and the vendors making huge profits from conflict? Who’s bothered to collect data on outcomes to see what’s worked and what hasn’t?
Any non-profit legal alternatives to purposely adversarial family court industries available, yet? Looks like we need multinational corporate administrators to change the name of “fatherhood initiative” to “We Belong to the State Now Initiative”. President Gavin Newsom and VP Justin Castro could make it happen and Mr. Lamont can use tax funds to pay the McKinsey fellas to work out the details. Bureaucrats got us into this mess and someone should pay them to straighten it all out.
UConn feeds the courts through the health and human services department. They are among the highest paid in the state. The courts are a mess. The people in the state are not getting their moneys worth. The buck may appear to stop here. When is someone going to investigate? The radical reform needed to straighten out the system. These people are being rewarded generously for the broken and dysfunctional system. Major conflict of interest. The judge continues to force GALs on the cases. Absolutely no faith in the state run family services. If family services is so incompetent why is no one straightening it out? Is it an excuse to appointment gals? Why is Joseph Ditunno wearing a million hats? Maybe he should focus on the running family services. Is it and will it be gender neutral due to his strong ties to the fatherhood initiative his wife is running? Why is happening at UConn that has the Connecticut family court system in the spotlight? Appearing to be the most dysfunctional, broken and currupt family court in the United States. The pioneer in running the billion dollar fatherhood initiative.
2016 university of Connecticut had the most reported rapes of all college campuses. The state of Connecticut doesn’t seem to have any type of handle on abuse. Some one please provide federal over sight.
There was just a rally to support sexual assault victims in 2022. Doesn’t look like there doing much about it. Connecticut is a free for all.
This is the same nonsense. Access for men is more important than the emotional, psychological and physical well being of children. These men are identifying as victims because they are escaping punishment for their abusive behavior. The father’s rights movement is being misused by several men. They misuse of parental alienation and misuse of the domestic violence system. The fatherhood initiative money and they are now attacking funding for domestic violence. These men are are oppressing women. If women don’t realize it is time to march and protest. No civil rights movement was ever won on line.
here we go again! I can se why all these men want to divorce these harpy woman. you would be wise to make sure you marry a good man. Look at the person you are married to and you will see yourself reflected back. crazy finds crazy. kind finds kind. but be careful, both men and woman can pretend to be whoever they think you want them to be. once your married , to late. what you see is what you get. when someone tells you who they are, believe them. YOU CAN NEVER CHANGE ANYONE.
This is the speech of the so-called parental alienation experts. It’s 2023 and women’s rights are being violated. Here they go again with crazy. Your school shooter’s philosophy has been debunked by the psychology professionals. Mental illness and suicidal thoughts. Willingness to take others with them. No divorce and single mother households. Judges in Connecticut in court transcript using it. Peter Rosa, Kloth Zanard and a whole host of others jumping on the band wagon. Victim-blaming has become the go to for these court bullshit artists. Ask a real psychologist or psychiatrist many intelligent women fall for narcissists; they’re wonderful actors until they are not. Take your victim-blaming and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. It’s an excuse for making money. Victim-blaming themselves enough. If you had a real clue you would already know that.
No, it is the speech of a woman who married a man who had a personality disorder. I married him because he flattered me, was very funny and charming, had money and in the beginning, gave me a life that I could never have dreamed of. To finally get away, I needed to really look at myself and realize that I was just as sick as he was. I kept trying to change him. Thinking, oh it will get better. Thinking I had the power to turn him into the prince I wanted. I was damned determined to not admit to myself that I had made a mistake by marrying him. I was just as narcissistic as he was, just on a different way. Thinking I had the power to change him. I did NOT want to admit that I was wrong in my assessment of who this man was. I fooled myself for a long time. He was a great father until the girls were about 7 or 8 and started to call him (and me) out on our behavior. My daughter said to me one day “why are you always fighting with dad. You are really mean” That turned the light bulb on. It stopped me in my tracks, because I in my mind he was the fighter, not me. But my daughter was right, I had allowed this man to make me bitter. I was a victim, one of my own stubbornness and desire for a cushy life. I started with baby steps and now can see what part I played. Had I not be blinded by my own desires and dreams in the beginning my life would have been much different. He told me/showed me who he was from the beginning, I just decided that he really didn’t know what he was talking about and I knew better. When someone tells you/shows you who they are, believe them.
You marry a narcissist because they learn what is important to you and pretend to have the characteristics you want in a partner. There is usually some things about the victim they choose. They are intelligent, hard working and dedicated to their family. These narrasist often lead a double life. The red flag are usually explained away. Eventually the victim is blamed for doing something that caused the bad behavior. There is usually an expectation in life that people grow and mature in a marriage. Especially when their are children. More chances are given to the narrasist because their are children involved. When the abuse escalates and the damage to children starts to be come obvious as well r the physical abuse starts to happens. That’s when people file for divorce and or custody. Looking to get help from the legal system. What a shock 😨 it is to many when the courts start enabling the abuser. Using gender , bias agreements and unsupported philosophy as the bases. Judicial discretion. Anyone who has made the mistake of marrying or had a child with a narrsatic co parent has lost countless nights sleep reviewing the warning signs they didn’t see. Or gave the benefit of the doubt cause people are human. These people have suffered enough before they went to the court for help. To be met by a sea of so called legal professionals who feel they are entitled to punish you financially and emotionally for being fooled and gaslighted. Nocked on your ass a few times and lied to more times than you can count. Under the the federally funded program that uses access over the best interest of children. Children who have suffered enough abuse themselves. Stop victim blaming. Not everyone is sitting on their ass and eating bonbons. Some of us have worked for a living our entire lives for what we have. To have a narrasist try and toss you out of your own house and tell the court you’re nuts for defending your self and protecting your children. If this could happen to me it could happen to Catherine. It’s happening to people especially women all over the globe 🌎. It’s impossible to co parent with a narcissist. They use children to continue to abuse the other parent. An endless supply of control and ability to manipulate. Narrasist: Grandiose self improvement. The inability to have empathy and concern for others. Including their own children. Often seen as a position and not a person. The courts can never fix this. Bankrupting people pretending they can. The victim is stuck in a perpetual state of fight or flight mode. The courts are taking complete advantage of it.
This is the victim blaming accruing for the so called parental alienation experts. People who believe it’s alright to extort money from people. You deserve to be abused. You deserve to be raped robbed and pillaged. Cause we are the Almighty court system and government. You are a second class citizen. Welcome to parental alienation warriors. The civil rights violations of women. Welcome to defamation of character because you were born the weaker sex. Welcome to being told you are unhappy and disgruntled because you are standing up for your civil rights. Welcome to the dark world of victim blaming. Welcome to the gaslighting from the AFCC and parental alienation warriors.
Women should march for what’s right not just because a woman cries abuse louder even if it’s not true. Catherine was – and even in death is – abusive. She abused Allan and the girls for years. The videos are old. The schools and clinicians all saw through her. So, march for justice and march for men who are abused too. Catherine is the abuser
Some women and children are being abused. Some women are, in fact, actually mentally ill and make up false accusations out of hatred, revenge or delusional thinking.
True. It’s the number of women being labeled by court-appointed therapists when non-court professionals say they are not. We have seen nothing in the Frank Report to prove Catherine was truly mentally ill. Angry, a little over the top at times, yes. Narcissists will go to great links. A real psychologist and psychiatrist will attest to that. Not a so-called parental alienation expert. They see parental alienation in everything. UFO sightings all day every day across the globe.
Women do lie, what is the disorder called when a woman cries false rape?
Another womans rights issues not being addressed. Put out on Twitter. Check out the widespread issue on Netflix documentary. Women being punished for coming forward. The human rights issues for women are being exposed. Several abusive men don’t like it. Neither do the women heavily invested an earnings a living off abusive men through out the country. There are deeply disturbed women who do this. The courts and the legal system are over inflating these numbers. Victims of true crimes are going with out justice. Rapists are free to rape again and again and again. Do we see a theme in the comments to discredit women in all abuse arenas? Those invested in painting women as liars gold diggers and malicious alienators. There appears to be alot of investments in making women out to be crazy, liars and to blame. It’s not just Catherine. For all the dads fighting for children for the right reasons. Keep fighting. Please don’t join the band wagon trying to destroy the character of all women.
What is the name of the netflix doc? I am curious
” victim/suspect” on criminalizing reporting rape. The invisible war. Is on the cover up of rape on college campuses.
UConn. Many complaints of mismanagment of rape on campus. Is it possible the gender bias for father’s, mens rights could have something to do with it. Massive funding for fatherhood initiative. Gatekeeper and alienators. There is a heavy investment in discrediting victims of abuse in the state. Does that gender bias funding have something to do with it? No mention of the state and country having a problem with rape amongst young women on college campuses from Ccadv. The collision on women children and seniors. No focus on it in the state? UConn is a state run school. Perhaps because there is no funding for women. No funding to address the problems? Is Connecticut leading the way in ignoring women as a whole in the state? Human rights, civil rights, parental rights and the well being of women and girls does appear to much of a priority to the state. The state receiving millions in funding for the fatherhood initiative.
It used to be called “sin”.
There is a real hatred building against women. Toxic feminist they say. Women who hate men they say. The suppression of women in the country has been going on for a while now. The united states continue to focus on healthy marriage. Trying to rehabilitate abusive men to be more marriageable. Women are being punished for leaving abusive relationships. Single motherhood is not a choice. It’s out of necessity in some cases. Where are the studies on the effects of children growing up with out a mother? Why is there so much negative perception around mothers development of a new relationship? Yet fathers are encouraged to bring new women into the children’s lives? The Kassonff case is a prime example. Connecticut department of health and human services at UConn is ground zero. The privatized funding for one gender has a lot to with bias studys blaming single mother household. The philosophy are geared towards hostile blaming of women. As we can from the frank report no real solution is coming from UConn. The family court legal system is being directed by gender bias funding both federal and private. Statistical data is not being shared. Bias information favoring fathers impact in children lives. All neglecting the impact of biological mother.including labeling them birthing people. Not birthing parent. People in Connecticut are not being allowed to identify as a mother or father on birth certificate. This is wrong on so many levels. Violating the rights of parents who wish to identify as such. The so called hatered towards men is really angry, frustration and fear. There is a tremendous effort being made to bias cases. Many abusive dangerous fathers are gaining custody. Using jailed father’s who have committed crimes not within the family are show cased. We are not being given the information on private funds being used in the states benefiting one gender over another. It’s an advisoryal system on purpose. Legal community benefiting greatly. This is a civil and human rights problem. The warning from the UN is absolutely true. A complete investigation of the funding for “healthy marriage” and fatherhood initiative should be investigated. A complete investigation of UConn and their studies as well as philosophy. The problem is coming from Connecticut and spreading like wildfire in the country. Fixing the broken system starts in the state of Connecticut. Marriage should not be forced on people. Children born out of wedlock is not being handled. The government needs to adapt or the courts will not be fixed. You can’t force people to marry. Stay married. Punish women for not getting married or staying married. The should not be punished or ignored for reporting sexual assault. Unconn needs to be under heavy oversight. Where is the funding for motherhood?
“There is a real hatred building against women.“ or purposeful hatred-building in general?
Lots of hate mongers out there, for sure.
They must be miserable.
There is a difference between hate and anger. There is a difference in delusional thinking and going to court with evidence. The courts don’t seem to be able to tell the difference. Anyone on here friends with Catherine? Cause the woman I spoke to that know her say she was perfectly sane. So did a doctor who treated her for two years.
Why don’t you ask the Nannies or her family if she was sane. Did u see the email from her brother where he calls her bipolar?! Go ask her friends who also lost custody of their kids of she was sane like Lizzie.
I’m sure they’ll paint an honest picture.
But really reach out to Heather, Mike and Jamie Youssef. Ask them how sane she was.
Have them make a statement. Was she bipolar? The court appointed therapist said unspecified? They were unable to diagnose a bipolar condition? How did a psychiatrist after two years not notice a bipolar disorder ? It’s not to say that Allan is a narcissist. We are just looking for the answers.
The nannies are a mixed bag – some loyal to Allan and some loyal to Catherine. Allan cheated with one of the nannies so there’s not a great history on that front.
Anon 5:37 pm. I knew her. She seemed sane to me. Perfectly sane and willing to use her legal skills to address this absurd situation. I didn’t know her closely, no, but she always presented as very much in control. The people saying she wasn’t sane strike me as rather disordered themselves and at the least deeply spiteful, and I’ve seen tinges of anti Christian sentiment and misogyny laced in the insults against Catherine. Catherine clearly did not follow the rules of female behavior for Jewish/orthodox women and certain people on here find that deeply upsetting.
There is a website, I will try to find it, that has stories from the nanny. Looks like the family has been banned from almost all nanny companies. I do not have proof of this but that is what they site said.
“Mood swings, often a symptom of menopause, are extreme and rapid changes in your emotional state. You can be happy one minute and angry the next or depressed for no reason at all.
Depression, sadness, frustration, irritation, and anger are the most common emotions linked to mood swings. When hormonal changes in your body affect the chemistry of your brain it can lead to these emotional changes.
Certain treatments for breast cancer can cause your hormone levels to go up or down and induce menopause. Breast cancer treatments, such as ovarian shutdown or removal and hormonal therapy medicines may also cause mood swings.
Other medicines can cause mood swings as well, including morphine, fentanyl, methadone, codeine, hydrocodone (one brand name: Vicodin), Demerol (chemical name: meperidine), and steroids.
Mood swings can also be caused by the daily ups and downs that can come with a breast cancer diagnosis and breast cancer treatment. After being diagnosed with breast cancer, it’s not unusual for some people to feel confident and capable one moment, and sad, distressed, or angry the next.”
I was friends with both Catherine and Allan. Their relationship was toxic but she was perfectly sane. Angry at times, no doubt – they both were. I was witness to some of his abuse first hand including when Allan was cheating with the nanny and Catherine was pregnant. She was devastated but stayed with him regardless because she believed her children deserved 2 parents.
Thanks for that insight. I and so many here guess what happened based on our experiences and biases without knowing what those closer to the situation know.
The 9/11 piece of the puzzle is important —- as is the cancer … cancer treatments … hormonal fluctuations … maybe early menopause, stress and everything else causing what looked like the beginning of Catherine’s nervous system headed for PTSD.
As soon as ANY family court sees ANY family in crisis, those judges have a responsibility to remove those most difficult cases from for-profit purposely adversarial family courts. Pushing ANY stressed family through for-profit purposely adversarial “family courts” in which there’s no outside oversight or accountability is criminal.
Families in crisis need less stressful family law resources to lessen stress those families experience to prevent harm. What kind of sadistic “family courts”, “family court judges” and “family court attorneys” pushed that family through that torture for four years until Catherine literally couldn’t take it anymore?
In medicine, they say, “First do no harm.”
In family law they say, “Do as much harm as you can.”
Narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths can appear perfectly sane. Mental illness does not mean someone is an obviously raving lunatic. And some mentally ill people can be quite intelligent, charming and charismatic when they want to be. See, Lizzie Weinstein. And Ted Bundy. (I am not comparing these women to serial killers I am just pointing out that mental illness isn’t always obvious to the casual observer). The court got the full and complete picture from both sides. The public is only getting Catherine’s side, because only Catherine is willing to torpedo her children’s lives to get at her husband.
Very very very true. I had a friendship for a few year with a person, whom I later found out had murdered a 5 year child girl that he had abducted from a church. That scar still remains and I always think, you never know anyone really.
I thought she was bipolar? Oh , I see unspecified? So it changes when convenient. That’s how these court psychologist operate. Unspesified means that it will change for the purpose we need in the case.
“The court got the full and complete picture from both sides.”
Did any court documents show how 9/11 affected Catherine and Allan? Was Catherine in Manhattan, at the time of 9/11? Did the cancer develop after that?
How did his affair with the nanny affect her hormones when she was pregnant? How did her hormones affect her anger? How did his anger and her anger affect the children? How did all that stress affect the cancer, her hormones and the “family court” proceedings? Did anyone working anywhere in the “family court” system wonder whether or not Catherine and/or Allan had PTSD?
Did the court’s analysis of her faith in Christianity and his style of Judaism indicate anything at all? How many times and in what ways were religious differences mentioned in the “family court” case documents?
How did the stress from “family court” proceedings affect all of the above after Gus got involved? Does the “full and complete picture” say anything about the involvement of Allan’s “biglaw” colleagues?
Did the “full and complete picture” show any collusion of judges, lawyers and/or family court vendors? Catherine proved the collusion did occur.
Was the “full and complete picture” you referenced the whole picture, half the picture or a series of small twisted vignettes cited in court documents to steal $3,000,000 from just one family in America in a bigger picture in the larger scheme of things?
Anon 7:24 pm … for argument’s sake, let’s assume Catherine had a personality disorder. Maybe so did Allan- seems likely. Lots of parents do. If that’s the threshold, I don’t see other personality disordered parents regularly losing custody. Why was that the standard *just* for her? And if she did have such a PD that made her ‘dangerous’ to the children, why did none of these mandatory reporters involved in the family (therapists, psychologists, AFC) ever make reports to ACS for an investigation not tied to $$ and lucrative court referrals and cost relationships?
Does this really make sense to you? Really? Clearly Catherine pissed people off and challenged the system. Maybe that wasn’t wise of her, but let’s not pretend she lost custody for any valid reasons.
“New York’s Family Courts employ psychologists to help judges make decisions on cases involving child custody, domestic abuse, and juvenile delinquency. But the agency tasked with regulating these psychologists does little in the way of oversight.
A ProPublica investigation found that the Office of Professional Discipline rarely takes the first steps towards investigating charges of mistakes or misconduct on the part of court psychologists, because the documents they need are sealed. And while people could fight these decisions in court, the process can be onerous and expensive.
Reporter Joaquin Sapien speaks with WNYC host Richard Hake about the problems with overseeing court psychologists in New York.”
https://www.wnyc.org/story/psychologists-play-big-part-family-court-see-little-oversight/
2017 was 6 years ago and NOTHING has been done. How can there be people like this making life changing decisions for children with essentially no oversight???
No oversight for those lousy family court “evaluators”?!
Every good judge, attorney, clerk, bailiff, janitor, librarian, chef, dishwasher and court stenographer should walk out of every courthouse to go on strike until there’s oversight, accountability and justice for children and families in family courts. What is wrong with those people? They watch what’s happening and do nothing?
Everyone know that the friendliest to the most dangerous family court cases usually follow directly proportional degrees of friendliness to torture — and often death as in the Kassenoff and Dulos cases.
Those working in family courts who see the dangers families and children face are complicit. Hospitals taking four years to heal every broken bone would never get away with it. Why do “family courts” get away with doing so much damage to children and families for profit?
Whistleblowers in family courts willing to tell the public what’s happening will gladly blow all whistles when they’re first promised full protection, job security, full pensions, plus rewards.
Why haven’t whistleblowers been offered those protections, already?
In every state as soon as possible, AG offices not offering full protection, security and compensation to potential family court whistleblowers must be held accountable for every single bit of damage done in every single family court case.
Absolutely!
Do you have a copy of the McKay report? Can you share it, if so?
No but if someone will leak it to me I will be very pleased. Never reveal sources.
Why? So u can all twist it and say more corruption by the courts. Maybe these professionals saw something that u lame people can’t see. I can’t believe the whole system favored Allan. A nobody with no connections in the Westchester matrimonial court. Both of them had lawyers with the same connections so Catherine as a federal prosecutor probably had more pull than Allan and yet she lost custody. Tells u maybe she was no martyr but really a sinner. And stop elevating her
If you’ve read the court papers, there were concerns about both of them but the main difference was Allan tried to facilitate a relationship with their mother while Catherine tried to destroy their relationship with their father. That was the deciding factor. He was the lesser of two evils.
Please explain how going to the court for sole custody, moving your girlfriend in having the children call her Mom, Allowing your girlfriend to wear their mothers clothing and saying all those nasty things to the mother of your children is encouraging a relationship? It’s undermining and disrespecting the mother. Teaching the children to do it also. He was taught to say the right thing in court by his attorney. His behavior outside of court said something extremely different. That’s the point 👉 pay attention to the behavior.
12:26 pm,
That seems to be hogwash — no hidden meaning or insults intended.
Lol. Oh yeah, he really tried to facilitate a relationship with the mother. Please
She worked for the GOVERNOR!- you know the head of the STATE Court System
Wow, that’s awesome Suneel wiped Clare’s ass.
Judges don’t mess with judges even when they know something is wrong.
Were all sinner. There are no saints. The degree of sin varies between people.
Are we allowed to discuss sin? 🤔
“Tuesday, June 27 @ 9 AM Pacific time is an important court watch.
Mia (San Diego) is a survivor of #TurningPoints #ReunificationCamp in New York, owned by #LindaGottlieb. Mia reached out to us, wanting her story to be heard and she provided testimony for Senate hearings in Montana, and California (a portion of her testimony is pasted below).
It has been eight months since Mia (16) and Ava (14) were removed from their preferred parent, their mother. They have yet to return home. Like so many others, they took matters into their own hands and fled. They are not in hiding, they are staying with family members, but they desperately want to be with their mother. Two teenage girls during such an important time in their lives – their worlds have been turned upside down.
Instructions:
1)Scroll down until you see “North County Regional/N-15” (N-15 is Segura’s courtroom).
2.) Click on N-15 Video Hearings
3) Log in as guest, observer or your name
This is on Microsoft Teams, not Zoom
Link in stories on IG: https://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/…/familylawvirtualhearings
Senate Testimony from San Diego resident, Mia, age 16. Mia is a survivor of Linda Gottlieb’s reunification camp,
Turning Points for Families: “My experience at this reunification camp has greatly affected my life. Linda’s agenda has affected my life. Being left alone with no one to support me and help me through this trauma has affected my life. On top of all that my mental health has plummeted, but no one cared because as long as my biological father got what he wanted and Linda could say that her program was working, it didn’t matter what was really going on. It didn’t matter that even after the camp and after the 90-day black-out period, I still didn’t want anything to do with my father. Linda and those who supported this weren’t happy because they didn’t get the results they wanted. You should be asking yourself, why the results weren’t what Linda Gottlieb said they would be? Because this “program” does NOT work. No child I’ve ever talked to has said that being forced to reconnect with their abusive parent has actually made them want a relationship.” #justiceformiaandava “
Instructions:
1) Scroll down until you see “North County Regional/N-15” …
2) Click on N-15 Video Hearings
3) Log in as guest, observer or your name
Online Services > Court Calendar > North County Division > Domestic > N-15 …
👉 Just one day in one courtroom of one courthouse in San Diego … and the southern border is: OPEN
“Tuesday, June 27 @ 9 AM Pacific time is an important court watch.
Mia (San Diego) is a survivor of #TurningPoints #ReunificationCamp in New York, owned by #LindaGottlieb. Mia reached out to us, wanting her story to be heard and she provided testimony for Senate hearings in Montana, and California (a portion of her testimony is pasted below).
It has been eight months since Mia (16) and Ava (14) were removed from their preferred parent, their mother. They have yet to return home. Like so many others, they took matters into their own hands and fled. They are not in hiding, they are staying with family members, but they desperately want to be with their mother. Two teenage girls during such an important time in their lives – their worlds have been turned upside down.
https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/justiceformiaandava
“… The pathologist noted that, although Olson landed on his back, the skull above his left eye was disfigured. He changed the manner of death from suicide to misadventure.
The same year that Olson died, Gottlieb wrote a CIA handbook on assassination. One of the methods he recommended was ‘the contrived accident.’
He wrote: ‘The most efficient accident… is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface. It will usually be necessary to stun or drug the subject before dropping him. A rock or heavy stone will do…
‘Blows should be directed to the temple.’
Olson’s family sued the government for wrongful death and were awarded a $750,000 settlement and received personal apologies from President Gerald Ford and then CIA Director William Colby.
The agency destroyed most of the files relating to MKULTRA and Operation Midnight Climax in 1973 so it is not known how many people’s lives and minds were damaged or destroyed by the illegal experiment.
Gottlieb is said to have told his agents never to write down any details of what they were doing.
And to make matters worse, it reportedly produced nothing of value for the spy agency and they never came close to discovering a ‘truth drug’ to use against America’s enemies.
A congressional report in 1977 described the program as offensive, unethical and illegal.“
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12166443/The-CIA-ran-LSD-fueled-brothel-10m-mansion-now.html
Link to N-15 video hearings:
https://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/sdcourt/familyandchildren2/familylawvirtualhearings
“One Moms Battle
August 27, 2021 ·
If you have been affected by Marc T Abrams (junk science “alienation” expert), please email tina@tinaswithin.com …”
“So much from behind the scenes are now unfolding!” –let’s try to look at this without throwing up a defense”
Thank you, Frank, for allowing such an active and thought-provoking discussion. I am getting a clearer picture.
First of all, I felt from Allan’s emails shared with the public that he had a sense of angst that he’d lose his progeny in a divorce. I also saw a sense of unconscious guilt or shame in his marriage choice. In fact, he came right out with it in that famous car door slamming video scene!
Coming from an Orthodox background he crossed over into a foreign world when marrying a shikza (Yiddish for non Jewish woman) and someone whose father came from an Arab-speaking country that wanted during Nassar’s administration to “drive Israel into the sea.” Like most Jewish men who married shikzas they felt if the marriage went bad that they wasted their seed on a Christian. However, he did everything proper by insisting on an Orthodox conversion. This required Catherine to study the Torah and when completed to take off all her clothes and immerse herself in a mikvah (ritual bath with one fortieth of natural rain water according to Talmudic precepts) in front of a panel of three Orthodox rabbis to watch her to make sure the water was above her head.
She lit Sabbath candles and attended Shabbat dinners. But when she learned of his alleged affairs and was subject to alleged beatings, including a hospitalization for a fistful of grass and mud that caused trauma and infection to her eye, and when her husband sang a song, not a holy Jewish song, but a sick nursery rhyme calling the mother of his children “a dead duck,” she eschewed the Jewish faith and clung to her memories of Jesus Christ.
She bonded well with her daughters and wanted to share that anchor in Christ with them. She was beaten, arrested, evicted and was left bereft of her children. What we have as mentioned by a poster is a mother who a Kassenof supporter called “a piece of shit”. Yes, yes, yes, the shikza once through with her in the bed (every Jewish woman knows she can never compete with a man’s desires for a shikza because they are known to be accommodating in certain ways whereas Jewish women are not) is deserving of beatings, arrest, eviction, and siezing her children from her breast.
This is done to save Jewish progeny and Lubell and his coterie knew the UNSPOKEN agenda here. But Catherine is DEAD and her story will.NEVER fade!! She will bring about redemption for ALL mothers and children. Now I ask the Kassenoff crowd to be kind and ask an Orthodox rabbi along with an interfaith panel to help the children.They will.learn their mother was a martyr –killed because she taught Christianity to her children “behind Allan’s back”.
What did she teach that was so bad?? Love, kindness, and caring for all. Please help bring an end to this suffering. I pray no Jewish man ever again drives his Christian wife to suicide. We can make it stop! I beg the Jewish men to allow their shikza ex wives to see their children. I know many Christian mothers salivating and yearning to see their children fathered by Jewish men.
It seems to me that many of the problems that plague Family Courts could be resolved by having the applicable state legislature pass a statute that sets “equal joint custody” as the norm when a couple that has a child/children is getting divorced. Thereafter, a parent who wanted to have the court order any type of different arrangement would then have the burden of proving that “equal joint custody” was not in the best interest of the child(ren).
It also seems to me that it might be a good idea to require every couple that is getting divorced to go through a mediation process before they can appear in Family Court. The mediation process would be conducted by retired judges who never served in Family Court – and would result in recommendations from the mediator to the Family Court judge with regard to such matters as child custody, child visitation, child support, spousal support, etc. Once again, if one of the parties wanted to challenge any of those recommendations, the burden of proof would be on them to show why they should be set aside.
Since I’ve never practiced in Family Court, I’m sure that other people can come up with more creative and effective ways to improve the process – and the outcome – of divorce proceedings. Given the lousy outcomes that are a result of the current process, it certainly doesn’t make any sense to just keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting things to improve (See famous quote from Einstein/Rita Mae Brown:https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05004-4).
KR. This is basically what exists officially now in many jurisdictions and is in practice in NY. And it doesn’t necessarily work. There is a presumption of joint custody and most parties attempt mediation or some form of ADR before litigation, and often during it as well. Courts usually force some form of ADR before allowing litigants to proceed in court. Courts then force other therapeutic jurisprudence type remedies – forensic evaluators to help decide who is the better parent, co parenting therapists, parenting coordinators to help with decisions, etc. Sounds good on paper, right? But these people often become highly compromised when fees are at stake and there is no oversight of their behaviors. The problem is that ‘joint custody’ is often a recipe for 18 years of fighting as then decisions need to be mutual and each party has veto power, ostensibly over almost everything. Family court knows this and no one rushes to find other solutions, maybe because the current system is very lucrative for so many. Where else could a psychologist make a cool 25k to 50k for a report she writes around her own schedule?
And as far as splitting time evenly, sounds nice on paper, but it’s often not so easy for kids in practice.
The fairest solution to me seems to be give custody to the parent who was the child’s primary caretaker prior to the split, with visitation to the other parent. Both parents can partake in decisions involving the child but the tie breaker is the primary custodial parent. No outside court professionals should be involved to ‘help’ as they are too prone to compromise if money is involved. High conflict is good business.
Yes, if you were too busy or uninterested in taking care of your kids while things were good with your spouse, then your spouse will keep doing that job when things go south in your marriage. And it is no excuse to say that you had the bigger job and income, were too busy with work. That is a choice too.
Mothers (it is usually mothers who are primary caretakers) who put their hearts and souls into taking care of their children, and are then robbed of them, there is no place in hell too hot for those who make this happen.
Ladies, be careful who you pick to be father of your kids, don’t focus on looks, charm, or earning power, go for a good heart.
Please. Catherine had Nannies. Notice in the videos. It was Allan who brought the girls to school on his way to work. When he was home, he was hands on. Stop pretending u know more than the courts. She fooled u to believe she had cancer in those 6 year old videos. She didn’t. She was a lazy shit lying in bed causing problems while he was trying to get the daughter out the door for school on his way to work. WAKE UP PEOPLE. She was not innocent
Anon 11:40 AM. Who are you? You seem to know a lot of detail but are also clearly a bit crazy and low IQ.
This happens in initial meeting with family services. You can bring schedule and all the proof you want. The parental alienation card gets pulled. Then it is off to the races.
This happens in initial meeting with family services. ✅
You can bring schedule and all the proof you want. ✅
The parental alienation card gets pulled. ✅
Then it is off to the races … until the children “age out” of the system.
It’s quite the racket they got going there — and racketeering as soon as “AFCC, Inc.” crossed state lines.
Yup that’s exactly what happened to me. The initial meeting with family services opposing counsel was their with his intimidation tactics and my attorney never spoke up. Then the forcing of the agreement to use a GAL. Family services. You might want to interview people away from opposing counsel. . There are soooo many things wrong with family court. The process is all leading to the layers of appointments . You pay to park sit in the hallway in Hartford like a heard of cattle. For your attorneys to go in without you. 20 minutes tops. Running to the court house constantly. Missing time from work. People showing up to canceled hearing. They were never notified of. A tactic to increase costs to get ring up one person cost. Happened to me twice.
Cautionary tale. The video where K gets her nail broken, and hurt her foot or leg, during fight with husband, and is in pain and crying. She’s crying, and repeating, “it isn’t supposed to be like this.”
Learning that she converted and later regretted that, it makes me think that women should be very careful before conversion away from a faith. If that faith ever meant anything to them, if they are deep down faithful people, with convictions connected to their first faith, converting away from that faith might not end up well, in the context of raising a family. Katherine will rest in peace according to the terms of her mother faith, but we see the tragic consequences of a choice to convert. Cautionary tale to all young women considering conversion.
You have no idea what actually transpired. Do u hear the part where he said no, I didn’t. Let’s believe he hurt her instead of not actually knowing. Maybe she hurt her nail by physically hurting him. Maybe he had pictures of her scratching his face and he never raised a hand to her even though she tried to egg him on so she could finally have him abuse her. But she never got her wish. He had restraint. U all have preconceived notions and it’s skewing ur judgemen. Unless u were there u don’t know
Were you there? Or do you also have “skewed” judgement? Are you just taking Allan’s word as truth? No one really knows the context of the videos – it’s just a he said she said situation and it’s ultimately NOT the most important aspect here. Maybe they both look bad – lots of divorcing couples & parents are angry. He never should have gotten sole custody. Period.
How do u know he should’ve never gotten sole custody. Maybe he really deserved it. You can’t base an entire custody case on a 5 minute TikTok who edited it to seem like she had cancer at the time. You also don’t know what she did beforehand to egg him on. There are over 3000 court filings and 2 forensic reports. Maybe just maybe the courts had good reason.
If he had pictures, he would have exposed them by now, and being “egged on” is zero excuse for any kind of abuse. I don’t need to be there, I can tell by her overwroughtness, and by his conciliatory tone that he did not behave well with this woman, the mother of his children, in the moments before the video. He was terrible to her, but the court system was the worst.
“Jane Manning, director of Women’s Equal Justice, a New York-based nonprofit dedicated to helping survivors of sexual violence navigate the criminal justice system, said OVW deserves enormous credit for the new protocol.
“What we know from experience is that standardized medical protocols can move things forward by leaps and bounds in caring for victims of gender-based violence,” said Manning. “The value of standardized medical protocols is that doctors, nurses and administrators who may not have their own extensive background in the area of gender-based violence can follow the protocols to deliver vastly better care. This means better diagnosis and treatment for the physical and mental injuries inflicted by an abuser, better support for survivors’ efforts to seek safety and better collection of evidence that can help survivors pursue protection and justice.”
https://msmagazine.com/2023/06/26/biden-intimate-partner-violence-clinical-guidance-domestic-violence-against-women/
Dr Susan Adler
Dr Carolyn McGuffog
Dr Marc Abrams
Dr Kathleen McKay
Attorney Carol Most
Judge Lewis Lubell
– are they all Jewish???
I think the more important question is are they AFCC members.
Who cares. This is about money. Maybe there’s a high percentage of Jewish lawyers in family court. There are plenty of non-Jewish attorneys and judges that participate in child abuse and trafficking children through family court.
religion has nothing to do with the problem, nor did it have any involvement in the Kassenoff case.
Only pure scum could have done what has been done here.
“Hypocrisy” and its Consequences”
Is it not hypocritical to expunge a mother from the lives of her children and then to turn around and blame her for killing herself, claiming her children will be without a mother???Thousands of mothers have been bereft of their children who have been severely brainwashed against their mothers due to the corrupt family court. Thus, if their mothers would die of suicide it wouldn’t bother the children one iota because they are already turned against them. The the children have been torn from their mothers at a young age and learned to identify with the aggressor and the winner in the family courts. It’s mere lip service and utter hypocridy to say that Catherine damaged her children by taking her life because the love they had for her was ALREADY obliterated by the Kassenoff Klan and their auxiliaries in the family court. They succeeded in wiping out any love the child had for their mother. I’m afraid we cannot escape the social reality that demographics and religion had a big role in this case. In Catherine’s FB post she wrote how much she longed to share Christ with her daughters, at least for them to know that she was Christian. I don’t see any evidence that Allan asked her to convert to Judaism. Allan chose a Christian girl for reasons that every Jewish man longs for with all his heart. He can’t at the same time enjoy the flesh yet expel her Christ in her —and throw her out into the street and take her children from her breast. And then arrest her THREE times for yearning to see her children. Those who persecuted Catherine will live to see the ire of those in America and Europe for the Kassenoff Klan. I understand discourse on the mangling and murdering of the Christian woman by her Jewish lawyer husband has already begun in Switzerland, England, Holland and beyond. I heard it right here in America. The ball is rolling down the hill and it won’t stop. Cancer stricken wife evicted, beaten, arrested and bereft of her children by prominent lawyer husband from Orthodox family. This is disgraceful. Something must be done. Why can’t the Kassenoff Klan lead the way to reform the family courts as your penance for the death of Catherine? Her name will never be forgotten, ever!!!
Catherine’s children were still so young, they could have came back around if indeed they seemed turned against her. Isn’t the youngest only 9?
What the hell Frank. All of this anti semitism is above this site. The pigs, this crap about Jewish man wanting to expel the christ in her. All this shows is that whoever wrote it is unhinged, (C, no wonder they took away your kids) Crazy talk from a crazy woman.
What “anti-semitism”? Please list a few examples — with the dates and texts. Thanks.
Are you blind?
What “anti-semitism”? Please list a few examples — with the dates and texts. Thanks.
Catherine converted to Judaism. She not only converted she did an orthodox conversion. Right after when they lived in Brooklyn she went to services on Shabbat. It was only after they had children did Catherine decide to renounce her conversion and begin to introduce Christian holidays to the girls behind Allan’s back. This was no wallflower. She’s a scheming woman who would do whatever she wanted to get whatever she wanted. So again. You know nothing and believe a woman who would lie at all costs. Even if the cost is the benefit of her girls. She knows no love. She doesn’t know how to love. Maybe call her mom and see how the Apple didn’t fall far from the tree and how she never learned how to love. The Youssef family are bad people
Such hate with no basis. Get a life.
Catherine did convert and later decided that it wasn’t right for her. It had nothing to do with scheming or lying. The holidays (Easter, Christmas, etc) were not celebrated behind Allan’s back – at the New Rochelle house, they had a xmas tree, presents, etc. Allan seemed fine with it.
How do u know he was fine with it? Did u ask him? Catherine did as Catherine wanted. If she wanted a tree, there was a tree. He wasn’t fine with it. He had no choice, she wore the pants in that household. If u didn’t do what Catherine wanted, then u paid the price. They were all afraid of her. If u actually watch the videos, no one fears Allan. They all fear Catherine, including Allan. And even the most controlled people will yell like Allan when constantly being pushed to their limits
If he wasn’t fine with it, he should have been. Lots of people grow up in mixed faith household without problems. I was raised Jewish and my husband of 16 years was raised Catholic. I often attended mass with his family on holidays. We had Christmas trees every year because my it brought my partner great joy and I wanted him to be happy. Exposure to other religions should be encouraged and embraced.
2:17 pm,
How do you know all of those details?
And Allan didn’t marry a wallflower – Catherine was always a spirited independent thinker – Allan knew this from the beginning and loved her for it at some point in time. She didn’t trick him – he’s a smart boy.
Exactly she was never a wallflower so don’t pretend she was
2:17 pm,
1. Catherine converted to Judaism. She not only converted she did an orthodox conversion. Right after when they lived in Brooklyn she went to services on Shabbat.
If true, that was her choice.
2. It was only after they had children did Catherine decide to renounce her conversion and begin to introduce Christian holidays to the girls behind Allan’s back.
If true, she should have been able to freely reclaim her Christian faith. Did she feel the need to hide her faith from her husband? If so, why did she feel the need to hide her faith?
3. This was no wallflower. She’s a scheming woman who would do whatever she wanted to get whatever she wanted.
Do you think she was a “wallflower” and a “scheming woman” because she chose to be Christian?
4. So again. You know nothing and believe a woman who would lie at all costs. Even if the cost is the benefit of her girls. She knows no love. She doesn’t know how to love.
“lie at all costs” to be a Christian? “Knows no love” and “doesn’t know how to love” because she was a Christian?
Also, how long have you gossiped about Catherine and her family? Why do you disparage her and her family? Did your gossip and harsh words cause stress for her and her family? If so, why did you do that?
Why do u disparage Allan? And, no, I don’t believe she’s a wallflower I believe she’s a schemer who did this suicide mission to destroy Allan without a care of how that would impact her girls. No loving mother would ever destroy the sole provider for their children no matter what. Love would trump hate. But Catherine wasn’t a lover. Probably learned that from her family who was estranged from her.
Instead of blaming Allan, maybe ask her mother where she was Mother’s Day? After all, Catherine and her were supposed to see the girls from 9-12 Mother’s Day but her mother never showed up and neither did Catherine. Doesn’t sound like a loving upbringing to me. Sounds like even her mother didn’t want to be around her, just like her girls didn’t want to be
Catherine was seeking an order of protection from Allan because he had her falsely arrested numerous times – thus no moms day. It did not come through in time. It’s fairly logical. When Catherine wrote her last FB post, she had no idea that it would get this much attention. She had been posting for years and no one outside of her immediate friends, other parents going through similar custody battles and those in the legal community had paid any attention to them. She left behind all of the evidence hoping it could shed light on a corrupt court system of which Allan was an active participant and cheerleader – not to destroy her girls. Allan didn’t seem to care that he willingly partook in destroying her. He thought they should share custody up until the point where the courts got involved. No hint that he thought she was “crazy” for the 14 years they were together. Just sayin…
Thanks for the clarification 1:12 pm
Reminds me of the woman who agrees not to have children, then, oops I am pregnant. You know all along she was planning that. People gossip about Catherine because she made the decision to post all that shit in her drop box. And deluge the internet with her story. Had she not done so , no-one would have even know who she was. She accomplished her goal.
Anon 2:17 you sound extremely racist and anti Christian. Gross
This area of the page is starting to make me feel more confident about something I wrote lower down on the page.
I have a theory (probably not very original) that things like anti-semitism or anti-Christianity are exacerbated when people try to use group affiliation to compensate for a lack of emotional sustenance from truly deep relationships. Prototypically parent/child, but we can have almost equally deep relationships with friends, spouses/lovers, even (yes) animals.
Not that “shallow” relationships are meaningless or harmful, but I think people get frustrated when many shallow relationships do not equal up to a few truly rewarding deep relationships.
Then, all of a sudden, it’s as if people start basically canvassing Creation for new relationships, and begin to subconsciously view other people, and social reality in general, in terms of how they slot in to that search. Maybe one starts to approach one’s faith community less in terms of religious ideals and more as a conduit for drafting acquaintances (I’ve seen this happen, in my opinion, within the religious group I was once more involved with than I am now, in my case a Buddhist organization, but also in Jewish or Christian friends sometimes …) Or one starts to become anti-immigrant or oppose policies like redistricting for multi-unit housing to preserve more homogenous neighborhoods (multiculturalism tends to dilute the places/institutions which are a source of “superficial” relationships).
Just a theory. Still, if neither Allan nor Catherine were deriving true emotional support from their family life that could have intensified the anger they had towards each other. Probably everyone realizes the psychological consequences of an unfulfilling family life (it’s probably less more traumatic than if you’re not married/no kids in the first place). I think we often underestimate the dynamics of how folks start to look for alternatives in social groups and specifically in more-superficial relationships, and then become frustrated — and budding friendships turn sour — when these do not adequately compensate.
If this sort of language sounds preachy, that’s unintended — it’s hard to simulate discussion without expressing opinions, and it should be assumed that all opinions are partial and perspectival! But has anyone else seen situations which seem to fit this kind of pattern? E.g., when someone starts resenting their friends because those friends aren’t sufficiently compensating for a failed marriage, an unfulfilling career, and so on? And what if those friends are from church, synagogue, or temple? Have you observed people frustrated that intra-faith relationships aren’t substituting for true family, e.g., and start to believe that the faith is being watered down, people aren’t sufficiently committed, etc.? And from there maybe it’s not a large leap to believe the faith needs to become strong again by fighting other religions?
Hi Allan.
There is a heavy investment in not having investigation in family court. If one gal, psychologist or judge in family court goes down. It puts all of their cases in questions. Orders overturned. There are billions of dollars supporting family court players. majority are going to do what ever it takes to keep the currupt system in Play.
Seems the feds might start with a general review of a few players in the system who show up again and again in complaints.
Many women are beaten down in the system. A bright intelligent woman also battling cancer. The courts are designed to drive women in to a state of frenzy. The honest truth about the court is even worse than what you are seeing in the frank report. These judges are a terrorizing people in to keeping their mouths shut in many cases. When you abused and Land on the steps of the court these women are already in a bad position. These gals, psychologist and judges just continue the abuse. You can’t cover it up forever.
I have been abused and the court saved my life. Why would this particular court help me and gang up on Cathrine. , My ex husband had more money, more anger at me and more connections than this Allan person. I found them very fair. I also followed every rule they set up. Took every class they recommended. Went out of my way to have the children visit their father and never talked poorly to them about him. I now have full custody of three great teenagers and live quite well on my divorce settlement. What are the stats on woman getting custody of their children in this particular court? I would like to see the proof (any proof) of all of these accusations against this court. I still see that there is still no death certificate.
When we lived overseas in Switzerland, my husband’s mother passed away while visiting. The embassy was notified, she was cremated, her ashes shipped and everything was tied up within less than two full weeks. These is something very fishy about all of this. Some of the same psychologists, one of the same judges and two of the lawyers were also involved in my case, why did I have such a different outcome. Please someone explain this to me. It just doesn’t;t make sense.
With an anonymous name how are we to believe you?
You’re anonymous too as are most people especially the ones who see the truth and support Allan. Why?! Because the crazy Robbie Harvey mob will attack you and your family. I believe this woman. And I believe Robbie Harvey needs to be taken down and held accountable for inciting a mob with no real evidence or real investigation and yet you e given him the power to destroy a family.
By the way where are all of you saving the girls now that their dad has no job?! I know hiding behind your screens full of talk. You destroyed their futures. You did nothing altruistic. This isn’t a game this is people’s lives. You disgust me
Robbie Harvey is a grifter. A noone who hopped on this bandwagon for attention.
OH .HELL NO. AM I GONNA GIVE YOU MY NAME. YOU’D BE OVER HERE ON YOUR BROOM CAUSING CHAOS. AND BREAKING MY WINDOWS. OaKy , DON’T BELIEVE ME. BUT YOU SEE i know the truth. So my guess is you want me far far away from here. They studies that were done during all of this were PHD CANS
no one cares about my name. but i am scared of this woman. she is gonna kill me. you don’t have to believe what i say, unbelievers , move on to the next post. this one is just too deep for you.
hazel …..i love you
No te creo. Custody should be shared in most cases, why did you get full custody? Maybe because you were the party the court favored? Because you “behaved” as they wished?
People here aren’t fighting only for women, they are demanding fairness.
As for your mother-in-law’s supposed ashes from Switz, this is a tall tale, honey. Don’t you have better things to do than to make up stories online?
No, I got full custody because the court felt that it was better for the girls. Call it what you wish, a tall tale , a lie, a made up story. I have nothing to prove with anyone here. Just was told about this web site from an attorney who represented me, they were pointing out how differently our cases turned out with such similar circumstances. You are damn right I “behaved”. I jumped through every single hoop they put in front of me, sometimes twice, because I would have done anything for my girls. Yes, the ashes did come and he left them in a cardboard box in my his home studio when he moved out. My lawyer contacted him numerous times to have them sent to him. He never responded. , they are still here sitting in that ratty cardboard box that I am looking at right now. You are right, I do have better things to do and am going to go do them right now. First one is get my mother in law a nice expensive urn so the poor woman can rest in peace. Good luck to all of you reading this Frank Report. It is a great resource on what not to do in a custody case. They have the power, so if you truly love your children, jump through those hoops as high as you can. It will pay off.
“Good luck to all of you reading this Frank Report. It is a great resource on what not to do in a custody case. They have the power, so if you truly love your children, jump through those hoops as high as you can. It will pay off.”
AMEN!!!
I guess the outcome may also depend upon which side of Gus you were on… if he represented you that would account for the different outcome
Thanks for that note Ex-Mrs. W.
Can you share the basic chronology of your case so we can compare? Did you have an attorney or did you represent yourself? For example, how many years did the court take in your case? Do you have connections personal in the court system or the community? If so, do you think that might have made a difference?
Ms W is a lawyer or a judge
Maybe it was just luck that you had the exact same circumstances in the same court with most of the same players and the death of a loved one in Switzerland and all turned out ok. It sounds like you were more compliant with their rules of engagement. The Google folders Catherine left behind is a good place to start if you doubt her story – it’s filled with tons of evidence including most (not all) of the court records. Your story sounds awfully coincidental though…
Luck my ass. YES, I complied to EVERY thing they told me. That is the main reason i got custody. PLEASE, PLEASE everyone in family court, do exactly what they tell you. You may hate the spouse you are divorcing, but the focus is to get your children, not calling your spouses job trying to get him fired, making online posts about how horrible he/she is and what a “parent of the year you are”, video taping your children and spouse and putting it online will not go over well in the court. You will not win behaving like an acrimonious fool that knows more than the court. I read some of those files last night. She scares the living daylights out of me. A woman scorned, but why, why, why! did she put all that info about her children on there. That info is forever available to the world. This woman has indelibility scarred her children for life. When these girls are old enough to date, any future dates , or even new friends can access all of this. SHAME ON YOU Catherine!
Thanks to Catherine and the power of the people, America’s secret “family courts” have be exposed once again. “Family court” cottage industries in too many states are criminal enterprises making a profit while exploiting families and children in crisis.
Some questions: Did you ever file claims of abuse against him? Did your husband try to get full custody? Did he claim you had a personality disorder and get an ex-parte order to remove you from your home? I think the Catherine-Allan divorce and custody case went sideways very early in the divorce proceedings. I’m curious if there was as much venom involved in your case.
I am late for my volunteer job, spending too much time on this crazy web site. I will give more info when I have time. Just please do whatever the court asks. My attorney was going to drop me very early in this process because I came in fighting with my fists up. Lawyer made it very clear my actions were not helping me, but helping him. Lawyer put the fear of God in me and I swallowed my pride, removed the thoughts of destroying my ex ( that took a lot of self control, trust me on this) and fell in line. I thought I knew way more than my lawyer in the beginning, my hubris was undeniable. Behaving like the lawyer told me to took every once of self control I had. Behaving like I should is my proudest moment! I have my children. They still see their father, and their 4 step sisters and brothers. I still HATE my ex, but never have those words left my lips in the presence of my girls. It is very interesting, as they get older, they are seeing his crazy behaviors and have started pointing it out to me when they fly back to me after a visit. When they are 18 the only thing I am going to tell them is “PLEASE do not marry anyone that reminds you of your father.” My guess is they will figure that out on their own. OH NO! Now I am ever later than I was. This web site is keeping sucking me back in.
Someone who gets it. Thank you. The reality is people like Lizzie and Catherine and their whole little cult don’t actually want their children. They REFUSE VISITATION with their own children. Because what they’re really want is to get their ex and/or the celebrity/attention they get by publicly making their claims. It’s sick and sad and horrific for the children.
The Women’s Coalition has documented thousands of cases just like this. It is not the exception but the rule. Judges are not being fooled by these parasites. They know mothers are not lying or mentally ill. They just use court appointees to discredit mothers so they have something to hang their hat on when switching custody to the father. And yes, it is gendered. It’s a continuation of age-old male entitlement in the family. You can see some of the cases on our substack: https://womenscoalition.substack.com/
Some say the problem is male entitlement.
Some say the problem is “Parental Alienation Syndrome”.
Some say the problem is Dr. Richard Gardner’s perversions.
Some say the problem is Dr. Marc Abrams’ perversions.
Some say the problem is Dr. Marc Abrams knows Robert Liberti.
Some say the problem is the judges, lawyers and evaluators all know each other.
Some say the problem is the Jewish faith.
Some say the problem is the lack of faith.
Some say the problem is Luciferianism.
Some say the problem is Freemasonry.
Some say the problem is corruption.
Some say the problem is greed.
Some say the problem is Marxists breaking down all families.
Some say the problem is part of a plan for global government and control.
Some say the problem is sin.
Some say the judges just need more training.
Some say the lawyers just need more training.
Some say the evaluators just need more training.
To solve any and/or all of the above problems: Start with an investigation of crimes committed in the “family courts”.
Raising awareness, this is what Katherine’s death is achieving.
Spreading the message that PTSD in mothers is not mental illness, but a normal, if sensitive, reaction to trauma.
That protective mothering is not mental illness, on the contrary it’s a sign of strong and loving character!
That fighting back against a corrupt system, is not mental illness, on the contrary it is a sign a of a strong spirit!
Posting all you children and family info in a google drive is not a strong spirit nor a protective mother, it is a vengeful woman scorned. the only with ptsd is going to be her children and she can thank herself for that.
Many hope the good feds are investigating to pick up where she left off. If they are investigating and will prosecute to address the crimes committed in the case, the trials could be significant chapter in the history of law. Significant family court reforms could follow around the world. The case has that much potential. One judge in Connecticut just ruled that an evaluator in a family court case does NOT have immunity in a civil case. The progress is slow but sure.
great point!!!!
This is absolutely spot on. It’s being federally funded through the fatherhood initiative. The have adopted the belief that all father’s even if dangerous should be involved in their childrens lives. If you are trying to protect your children they will be snatched away. Placed with an abuser. Unless you have to financial means and a connection attorney. There is a rubber stamp on family court cases. You will be tossed around and punished by the family courts. Legally abused for the convince of the courts. High priced players in the game. Look what is happening in the state of Connecticut. A father who lost custody who went up against freed marcroft. A firm raping their clients with large fees. He is proving a case against a psychologist. The state is stepping in to provide legal counsel to the psychologist. Claiming immunity. Why? Because if this Dad wins it puts all the other cases the psychologist was involved in, in question. The state of Connecticut is heavily invested in protecting the court system not the people who are forced to use it. The kids who are significantly affected by it. The time to expose the people is way passed due. There is a lot of money involved in that case . Many people complaining about freed marcroft. Rediculous fees. If you don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars. They really could give a shit about your case. If the mother was right in her claims. She had to spend a few hundred thousand to prove it. Custody of minor children for sale in the state of Connecticut?
Why are the tax payers paying for legal services for a psychologist? This is a misuse of taxpayers’ dollars. The state of Connecticut once again ducking for cover from exposure of the family court system. They want to pass laws to silence the public. People posting the truth on line is not harassment. Freedom of speech from the public. Harassment and stalking are already defined. It’s time to tell the truth in Connecticut. This psychologist has malpractice insurance. Let the psychologist stand trial with a jury without state intervention.
You obviously don’t understand how this has been happening in Connecticut. It’s a state employees through UConn. They are given the ok to screw over the people of Connecticut. It’s in their contract. William Tong and the rest of the players are going to protect the players in family court. UConn feeds family court through the department of health and human services. The largest paid players in the state of Connecticut. They have built a fortress. They get away with everything and anything. No accountability. Immunity for all no matter the damage to the people of Connecticut. They don’t want anyone to be talking about it.
significant case: no immunity for family court evaluators in Connecticut
“… Construing the allegations of each count, with the exception of count five sounding in negligent infliction of emotional distress, the plaintiff has sufficiently pled facts that if proven may support his claims that defendant Grasso acted wantonly, recklessly or maliciously. Specifically, in counts one, seven and eight the plaintiff has set forth alleges of fraud indicating that the defendant acted purposefully. These actions, if true, are more than negligent conduct. Rather, they amount to a knowing or reckless disregard. In count two the plaintiff has alleged that defendant Grasso engaged in psychological manipulation of and made slanderous comments to plaintiff’s minor child. Again, actions that are demonstrative of intentional as opposed to negligent conduct. In count three the plaintiff has set forth allegations of malicious prosecution. Likewise, knowingly subjecting someone to false charges constitutes conduct that goes beyond negligence. See, Shay v. Rossi, 253 Conn. 134, 749 A.2d 1147 (2000). In count four the plaintiff incorporates the first 25 paragraphs of count three and sets forth a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress. Thus, plaintiff has alleged purposeful action on the part of defendant Grasso that once again goes beyond allegations of simple negligence. Count five sets forth a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress. As the factual allegations are based in negligence, the motion is granted as to count five. In count six, the plaintiff seeks to hold the defendant responsible for the tort of scienter. The court has found no authority supporting a claim for scienter under Connecticut law. Accordingly, the motion to dismiss is also granted as to count six. Lastly, count nine, sounding in CUTPA incorporates paragraphs 1-25 of the prior counts which set forth allegations of the defendant Grasso’s purposeful as opposed to negligent actions.
Construing the pleadings in favor of finding jurisdiction as the court must do, See, Keller, supra 305 Conn. at 531, the court grants the motion only as to counts five and six, and denies it as to the remaining counts finding the plaintiff has sufficiently plead facts that defendant Grasso acted purposefully or with reckless disregard so as to overcome the motion to dismiss …”
https://civilinquiry.jud.ct.gov/DocumentInquiry/DocumentInquiry.aspx?DocumentNo=25271899
Why is the Connecticut Attorney General’s office representing Judge Moukawsher? Would the AG’s office defend Mr. Adelman, too? Attorney Generals’ offices are supposed to protect the people and public interests of the states — not corrupt family court judges and judges who cover for the corruption of family court judges.
How many New York or Connecticut legislators want to appropriately address family court corruption and don’t? If there aren’t enough whistleblower legislators in each state, maybe there are enough legislators who care enough to cross state borders and pool enough courage to protect constituents.
https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/47421472/Cunha_v_Moukawsher
Three of the latest twelve pages from Connecticut’s AG’s office says:
“Please dismiss her complaint because she filed it late. Get rid of it that way, okay?”
Maybe if you spent less time hating in the Jews you would still have a license to practice law.
1. WHY is “the state is stepping in to provide legal counsel to the psychologist” — with tax dollars??
2. Which “family court” psychologist receives tax dollars for litigation?
Lamont’s administration already uses state funds to draw abortion business to Connecticut from other states. Does Lamont’s administration use tax dollars to draw the LBTQIP+ business to the state?
One way owners of “Freed Marcroft” draw LGBTQIP+ business into Connecticut:
“And these agreements don’t really have anything to do with the issues- or it may or may not have anything to do with what happens if the marriage breaks up and the financial matters. They take care of things that are specific to the LGBT community, IE if we happen to be living in Texas at the point where our marriage needs to dissolve; Texas doesn’t recognize our marriage, and so we don’t know how to get divorced because we don’t live in a state that has jurisdiction over our marriage. And so we will do prenuptial agreements that document that the couple’s desire is to have jurisdiction in Connecticut, a state that recognizes the marriage. And so if you do that before you get married in the form of a prenuptial agreement, the hope is that all of that will get recognized and if you need to get out of your marriage you’ll be able to. So there are just a whole host of issues that despite the fact that we live in a tremendously equal state, Vis a Vis the rest of the country, there are legal needs that same-sex married couples have to go through if they ever plan on leaving Connecticut.“
https://jenntgrace.com/meghan-freed/
almost 2,400 divorces taking place every single day in the country. so thousands of cases like this one is a very small number compared to overall number of divorces. Just saying.
2,400 divorces every day?
Where can one find that data?
It’s free!
Dear qualified professionals:
Please start recording these kinds of meetings to make these meetings available for public oversight.
“Free Virtual Program
Wednesday June 29, 2022
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
2 CLE Credits
2 CE Credits
AFCC-NY
Association of Family and Conciliation Courts
New York Chapter
Co-Sponsored by
Appellate Division, Second Department,
Attorneys for Children Program
Presents: The Future of Custodial Evaluations (what happened to the past custodial evaluations?)
Virtual Town Hall – Panel Discussion
Karen Simmons, Esq.
Lawrence Jay Braunstein, Esq.
Jeffrey Wittmann, Ph.D.
Louise Feld, Esq.
Virginia A. LoPreto, Esq.
Janet Neustaetter, Esq.
AFCC-NY President: Teresa Ombres, Esq.
Program Co-Chairs: KAREN SIMMONS, ESQ. & SHEILA SCHWANEKAMP,ESQ.
The Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department has been certified by the New York State Continuing Legal Education Board as an accredited provider of continuing legal education in the State of New York. This program is approved to provide a total of 2 NY MCLE credits in the Area of Professional Practice. This course is appropriate for all attorneys.
For Psychologists: The New York Chapter of AFCC (Association of Family and Conciliation Courts) is approved by the New York State Education Department to sponsor Continuing Education for Psychologists (#PSY-0114). The New York Chapter of AFCC maintains responsibility for these programs and their contents.
IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters of this CE program have any relevant financial relationships to disclose.
https://afccny.org/the-future-of-custody-evaluations/
Yes, lets see what is happening in the AFCC classes.
Thank you Frank for depicting Catherine in a halo of golden light, she is becoming a martyr for the cause of lost motherhood at the hands of greedy and evil family court system. When will change come?
She used to be so beautiful and was so beaten down by the time they were done with her.
Complete agreement. I will soon have a voice in my memoire. Due to Catherine’s loud, educated and loving voice being heard we pray for positive change. I understand Catherine said “someone has two die for people to do something”. I pray Catherine is alive, but hope is waning. She was pushed to the brink, she is a martyr. However, we needed her more in life than death. Let’s not allow her to die in vain. Those that did harm to this family and others like mine need accountability, disbarment and punishment.
Frank’s Report’s reporting has given me hope in my own case, that my parents suspicions of money exchanging hands behind the scenes was not in their imagination or our collective ‘paranoia’. I too have been labeled awful things, incorrect things, in family court. It’s deeply effected my family and damaged my twin daughters and I as we try to heal the horrific damage of estrangement and alienation. Please keep up the good work Frank and families entangled in the corrupt family court money machine…
Peace,
Paige.
Frank has given so many people hope. He’s a good man.
Nobody is buying your memoire except for maybe your former dog trainer.
Cathrine a mayrtar? Sure just like George Floyd? Floyd was a mayrtar too only the world didn’t care he was a rapist. Maybe the world won’t notice how cruel she was to her family. I’m sorry people but Cathrine waking her daughter up to yell and humiliate her for eating chocolate was enough for me. That and this fake suicide with subpar excuses is not in the form of a martyr.
“Peaches”? Is that you? 🤔
George Floyd was murdered by a government employee in front of a group of young people. I don’t care what the man did, a government cannot kill its citizens just because he passed a fake 20 dollar bill.
I do agree with you on this catherine lady.
“Brazen Disregard for the Truth by Those Supporting the Corrupt Family Court”
I recall reading that nearly 1,300 women came down with breast cancer from the debris they were exposed to at Ground Zero. Catherine who was sent down there by the EDNY to investigate security and public safety issues became a casualty in the interest of performing her valiant work as a public servant. Who wrote that she supposedly scammed the system and falsely claimed an award of 300K which she deservedly earned to cover her treatment and loss of wages while she was recovering from surgery and undergoing chemo and radiation? Who hates this honorable woman so much that even posthumously you must belittle, excoriate, and comdemn her??? Is it not bad enough that she was apparently beaten as indicated in the painful audio recording of the sore neck and broken fingernails that you have to beat her up futher by ruining her reputation? Where were you raised? Are these Jewish values? It is well known why Jewish men marry Christian women and it is often not out of respect. Let’s take the gloves off and admit what is at the bottom of this animus for Catherine. I will be discreet but you all know why you took the girls away from her and how you had the alacritous help of a Jewish judge, Jewish therapists, and a Jewish custody evaluator and his replacement who is training director at a Jewish agency. I know of many Christian mothers whose children were taken away by their Jewish husbands and turned brutally against them. How much money will the Jewish community have to raise to give themselves good name after the murder of Catherine Kassenoff, a Christian woman who turned the other cheek by shedding her own blood rather than others?
Thank you for writing this. To better understand ourselves and each other, we need to communicate as freely as possible. In a few days, I will remember the beautiful life of a brave relative who died trying to save Jews in the Holocaust. My family lost our relatives, friends, neighbors and farms because of hatred for entire groups of people.
We are headed in that same tragic direction in America if we don’t turn around right now. We must openly discuss hidden hatred that leads to destruction.
I am a mother. Family court judges punished me and my child after I tried to protect my child from the father’s sexual abuse. The cabal of lawyers and vendors who destroyed me and my child seemed to be of Jewish heritage, but not a respectable Jewish faith. They clearly knew exactly what they were doing when they destroyed my child and me.
I’ve wondered if they were so cruel because I am Christian. I also wonder if my relatives died trying to save their relatives in WWII.
Thank you for being so openly anti-Semitic the world needs less people like u on it. Maybe join Catherine in hell. She’s no martyr she’s a selfish pig who decides to commit suicide and destroy her ex in the process without a care in the world the impact that that would have on her girls. She’s no hero she’s a piece of shit
7:21 pm,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
What’s your operational definition of “Semitic”?
Could you please tell us who you are?
You wrote, “the world needs less people like u on it.”
What do you have in mind? A genocide of some kind?
What about the genocide u people did to Allan and the girls based on only her Dropbox. Over 3000 court filings and somehow she only chose about 40 to put in the Dropbox. Wonder y she didn’t put the nannies’ testimonies where they speak of her horrible abuse of ally. Why didn’t she put the Facebook post in the French so pair group where someone posted not to work for the kassenoff family because the mother is a psychopath who abused her children. No. She chose to include so called emails from her daughters from accounts she set up and knew the passwords to. Yah bc I believe kids email and not text. Ok 🙄. She selected out of over 3000 only about 40 something filings. Seems like there’s a lot more missing than what she revealed. Seems like you’ve been played for a fool. Or maybe u really are just that
8:54 pm,
1. Nightmare “family court” proceedings cause PTSD.
2. PTSD destroys relationships.
It’s not rocket science.
This has nothing to do with religion! Why is the family courts in New York City taking children away from abused mothers because they have left the Jewish community? Let people be of the Faith they wish. Stop using religion as an excuse. Americans should be allowed to practice or not practice a faith. Stop snatching children under the misguided disillusion that they have to practice the faith of the father. We have lots our freedoms.
7:21
Amen to that. The anti semitism here is just mind blowing. The only thing it means is these people have no proof and the tale they tell is made up to make themselves look better and feel better. These crazy women maybe believe what they are saying. If they admit who they really are and the truth of the case they would not be able to live with theirselves. Maybe that is what happened to Cathrine. She looked in the mirror and realized what she had done to her girls. Oh, probably not, my guess is she is alive and well living off her merger gofundme cash and will be showing up once she is out of money or burns her bridges with all the people she conned. Or runs out of chocolate bars.
Um, Shelly B.?
“Amen” to what?
1. “Thank you for being so openly anti-Semitic the world needs less people like u on it.”
2. “Maybe join Catherine in hell.”
3. “She’s no martyr she’s a selfish pig who decides to commit suicide and destroy her ex in the process without a care in the world the impact that that would have on her girls.”
4. “She’s no hero she’s a piece of ****”
and how often?
please reread. I am 100 percent allan. supporter. And the Katherine is a dangerous woman. I am not anti semetic. I’m born a jew , married a jew with his family all jews, oops one catholic IN THERE, I forgot about. 3;17 ALLAN , I AM 100 PERCENT ON YOUR SIDE.
YOU AND I ARE KINDRED SPIRITS. MY CRAZY HUSBAND IS YOUR CRAZY CATHERINE.
MOVE ONE STEP AHEADM BY ONE STEP. DO NOY LET CATHERINE GHOAST LAMP U=YOU . HANG THOUGH.
3;15
I MENT AMEN TO THE REALITY OF THE CATHERINE LADY, SHE IS A CRACK POT
SEFISH PIG , NO MARTYER , JUST A BITCH WHO WANTS TO DESTROY HER EX AND CRPPLE HER KIDS . YOU R RIGHT, NO HERO , A PIECE OF SHIT. I AM AJEW. DOES THAT MAKE ME ANTISEMTIC, NO JUST SOME WHO SEES THROUGH CRAZY FEMALE TERROR.
Reread the post it s crystal clear what I said “amen to that”
The anti semtisum is coming strictly from Katherine’s flying monkey troop.
as a jew I am not sure if your statement “Thank you for being so openly anti-Semitic the world needs less people like u on it.” was that meant for this working class jew.
Maybe I will join Catherine in hell, I will not be in hell, because I never played to win or do i fight to make a point, I played to get back in my home with my babes.
last words said to me “She’s no hero she’s a piece of ****”. My words , Okay I ain’t no hero, not even a piece of shit . but I am a really good piece of ass. Just let e know if you want to hear about it
This area of the page is starting to make me feel more confident about something I wrote lower down on the page.
I have a theory (probably not very original) that things like anti-semitism or anti-Christianity are exacerbated when people try to use group affiliation to compensate for a lack of emotional sustenance from truly deep relationships. Prototypically parent/child, but we can have almost equally deep relationships with friends, spouses/lovers, even (yes) animals.
Not that “shallow” relationships are meaningless or harmful, but I think people get frustrated when many shallow relationships do not equal up to a few truly rewarding deep relationships.
Then, all of a sudden, it’s as if people start basically canvassing Creation for new relationships, and begin to subconsciously view other people, and social reality in general, in terms of how they slot in to that search. Maybe one starts to approach one’s faith community less in terms of religious ideals and more as a conduit for drafting acquaintances (I’ve seen this happen, in my opinion, within the religious group I was once more involved with than I am now, in my case a Buddhist organization, but also in Jewish or Christian friends sometimes …) Or one starts to become anti-immigrant or oppose policies like redistricting for multi-unit housing to preserve more homogenous neighborhoods (multiculturalism tends to dilute the places/institutions which are a source of “superficial” relationships).
Just a theory. Still, if neither Allan nor Catherine were deriving true emotional support from their family life that could have intensified the anger they had towards each other. Probably everyone realizes the psychological consequences of an unfulfilling family life (it’s probably more traumatic than if you’re not married/no kids in the first place). I think we often underestimate the dynamics of how folks start to look for alternatives in social groups and specifically in more-superficial relationships, and then become frustrated — and budding friendships turn sour — when these do not adequately compensate.
If this sort of language sounds preachy, that’s unintended — it’s hard to simulate discussion without expressing opinions, and it should be assumed that all opinions are partial and perspectival! But has anyone else seen situations which seem to fit this kind of pattern? E.g., when someone starts resenting their friends because those friends aren’t sufficiently compensating for a failed marriage, an unfulfilling career, and so on? And what if those friends are from church, synagogue, or temple? Have you observed people frustrated that intra-faith relationships aren’t substituting for true family, e.g., and start to believe that the faith is being watered down, people aren’t sufficiently committed, etc.? And from there maybe it’s not a large leap to believe the faith needs to become strong again by fighting other religions?
There is no anti semitism. This is more created bs in the thread to create an illusion. The tactics are the same. Lables. Anti semitism, crazy, narrasist, boarderline, unspecified mental health issues, white women of privilege. All excuses to the on going issues in family court. These are AFCC member running the agenda in Frank’s comments. Women are bad. They are birthing people. They are to be enslaved and disgarded when it’s convenient.
please reread these threads. the antisemitism is here. not everyone is , but there are a few comments that are. there are far, far, far more that are not antisemitic, but it is here sprinkled throughout.
‘…unless you consider symptoms of PTSD- a response to a major stressor- to be a disorder’.
Has Dr Brandt even read the DSM?
Do you know what the ‘D’ in PTSD stands for?
Why, PTSD is Post Traumatic Stress DISORDER!!!
Is this clown board certified?
Anon 12:03. Way to miss the point. I think the first poster is on to something
Read up: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/silencing-your-inner-bully/201909/why-ptsd-is-mental-injury-not-mental-illness
These psychologist know what they are doing and the harm they cause. Half of them go into the professionan to get answers for their own problems. A lot of the mental health professionals are sicker than the patient they treat. The sickest are working in the family court industry.
Anon 8:30PM AGREE. There are many dysfunctional psychologists out there and the worst seem to end up in family court
The full sentence:
“I do not find any psychopathology in Ms. Kassenoff unless you consider symptoms of PTSD- a response to a major stressor — to be a disorder.”
Most people agree: “Post Traumatic Stress” is a normal response to unbearable stress. Many physicians and good people say post traumatic stress isn’t a “disorder” because it’s a normal response to an abnormal situation.
Meanwhile: Many sociopaths and psychopaths harm others because they enjoy harming others. The sociopath or psychopath might endure or conduct stressful situations without suffering any damage at all to their nervous system.
See the difference?
Yah. She’s a sociopath and psychopath.
Allan and the girls have ptsd from her
As did her family which is y they were estranged from her.
Her relationship with her own family is very telling about what kind of toxic person she was.
“… During the girls’ extreme acting out both younger girls screamed comments about not having a Christmas visit as they are Jewish. This fits into comments Ally has shared with this writer about feeling a great deal of pressure for choosing to have unsupervised visits with her mom. She stated that the small Christmas tree she asked for from her mother for her own room was not allowed in the house and has remained on the front porch since she received it per her father’s directives. Ally stated that she was made to throw out the leftovers she had brought home from the previous dinner with her mom as the meal was not Kosher. Ally shared that “no one” was talking to her in her home because of her decision/wish to see her mother. Ally was visibly quite upset when recounting these facts …”
Much of the commentary on “KvK” (here and elsewhere) has paid lip service to “protecting the children” but the tenor of the discussion leads one to question how sincere people are. With exceptions, the majority of commenters seem to think that the goal of KvK as a public spectacle is to decide quasi-jury-like whether Allan or Catherine is the “guilty” party. I think the more pressing concern is how a household could descend into abusive parenting from both angles, and how to prevent such situations from happening to other children. These lawyers, judges, and psychologists failed the three daughters.
I know that there are Mother’s Rights and Father’s Rights advocates out there, and each side tries to frame the narrative (about both individual cases and family courts as a whole) in terms of fairness for one parent or the other. At bad moments these competing narratives merely replicate in the theater of public opinion the adversarial nature of a bad divorce — people aren’t happy with how they’re treated by the legal system so they use traditional and social media as a proxy.
I think Mother’s Rights groups have a credible case that courts are often biased in favor of men, causing fathers in many cases to win custody when children would clearly be happier and safer with their moms.
But the flip side is a tendency to act as if emotional abuse by mothers is less dangerous or less worthy of censure, compared to fathers. KvK shows that such assumptions are troublesome. Catherine may have been less physically intimidating than Allan, but her fights with the children had an insistency that I think a young person could find just as traumatic as Allan’s over-the-top yelling: forcing her daughter to sit down on a chair and write stuff, or repeating “liar” many times. These feel like CIA interrogation tactics (designed to humiliate without illegal physical coercion) more than actual parenting. Now I get that fathers sometimes mete out worse abuse than this — raping children is worse than yelling at them — but focusing solely on the most sadistic levels of bad parenting (physical violence, child pornography) seems to send a message that society will overlook abuse of a less horrifying (but still immoral) nature. Neither Mother’s nor Father’s Rights groups have the right to pursue their activism on the backs of traumatized children.
Both Allan and Catherine came from a science-oriented educational background and worked as professionals, in a milieu where mutual respect and thoughtful deliberation is (or should be) a minimal requirement. I don’t entirely understand how people from that backstory would come to act as if, in their mind, one’s proper parental role is to lead their household like a drill sergeant, as if our children were being prepped to fight a war rather than, you know, do well in school and express caring and empathy for their friends and classmates.
If I could end on a speculative note, maybe one lesson of KvK is that dominant paradigms (even on the progressive or, citing George Lakoff, “nurturant parent”) side of the “political aisle” have built flawed mental models of how compassion and prosocial ideologies are supposed to work. You have liberals embracing a “Scandinavian” concept of “Hygge”, which apparently connotes something vis-à-vis Communitarian mutual support (like Hillary Clinton once tried to iconify via “it takes a village”) — perhaps an analogous ideal from the center-right is what David Brooks calls “thick communities” — but these paradigms appear to lead people toward seeking a kind of blindered entrenchment in their peer groups. Mother’s and Father’s Rights communities might be a case-study in that dynamic: they are at least in part peer-focused support groups for folks facing similar challenging circumstances. But nurturance is not the same as peer-Communitarianism, and the dark side of peer groups is inter-group rivalries, which cause people to experience themselves as gaining the acceptance of peers by helping combat outsiders, rather than devoting their energy to nurturing children (and close friends, and animals, and the environment).
I think we are all KvK sometimes — we become too invested in peer-relations and distracted from our cosmic responsibility to nurture. Instead of “it takes a village”, a nurturant environment is a bubble where children don’t have to compete with the village for parents’ love. (And outside the bubble is not a “village” but a multicultural — usually urban — community sustained by fair, rational, and technocratic governance, Municipalism over Ethno-Nationalism; it is precisely because people are emotionally sustained by a nurturant intrafamilial bubble that municipal territories — in the Murray Bookchin sense on the first word and Felix Guattari on the second — don’t need to be venues for homogenized collective recognition but can focus on the science and entrepreneurship of sustainable societies: caring for the poor, welcoming the outsider, government via deliberation rather than coercion, leveraging science. In other words, nurturant parenting is not only the foundation of our home life but of just society itself. But where are prototypes for truly caring mothers or fathers? Other than Jamie Larder and Sherpa — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYTwXM6v_DRQrsuZvPW0MzA, @Sherpas_vanlife — I can’t think of any TV show or social-media site where I watch and say, there, that’s the parent I should be when I have kids …)
If you look at Ms. Magazine’s piece about Catherine from 2021, the whole story is framed from her perspective — it is *her* home which is empty — rather than the children’s. True, that article has some useful information exposing family courts. But it’s telling that they hook people in by honing on her emotions (“Empty Home for the Holidays”) rather than theirs.
Meanwhile, I noticed that when Catherine was writing about her relationships with the daughters — i.e., presenting how she was being a good parent — she cited things like violin and french lessons. These are things in *her* background. Sure, it’s right for parents to expose kids to what they grew up with and appreciate. But when you take that too far it’s as if parents see children as extensions of themselves, not in the loving “my flesh and blood” sense but more like children extend your culture into the future. Like, they’re playing a role to solidify your standing as someone who protects and sustains your culture, religion, and so forth. You’re not valuing the ones you care for based on the intimate parent/child relationship in itself.
The point is not that kids should be self-centered — I want mum’s love all to myself — but that the parent/child bond can serve as an example for how caring is about people feeling for other as individuals, not as tokens for their “group” (faith, language, ethnicity, whatever). Nor should parents only care about their children, but adults’ relations too should be about mutual compassion and not group allegiance.
Noting that Catherine is from Canada, that’s a country that many people have suggested is pretty enlightened when it comes to “post-national” identity — social bonds based on empathy rather than jingoism — but that’s not just some abstract political ideology. It’s more like overcoming how people care about group identity because it’s a kind of ready-made peer group. Your acquaintances from church, the socioeconomic homogeneity of your neighbors, racial segregation, etc., ensure that you have at least casual friendships and a predictable social milieu (unlike trying to make friends across cultural boundaries, where there’s likely to be more awkwardness, not sure what to say, how to bond via the proper lingo — “you’re the first person I’ll call after the Sabbath”, that sort of thing — without such norms people do tend to become more reticent and introverted). Casual friendships can be an important emotional support, but it goes too far to set them in competition with children, as if you’re raising kids with an eye to how they appear in the eyes of your extended community rather than forming intense and private parent/child bonds.
“The personal is the political” — private lives sustained by casual group-conscious friendships rather than truly deep relationships make people overcommit to group identities, in my opinion, and that has political consequences: xenophobia, and erosion of concern for the overall social welfare. And in the home it can make people bad parents!
Katherine teaching/speaking French to her kids, supporting their musicality, all of the things she dedicated time to with her children, this was “loving (her) flesh and blood” and not as you say “extending her culture” into the future, though the latter may have been a secondary effect as well.
Katherine knew how dear those things had been to her, how much they had developed her mind, body and spirit, and they were gifts she gave. Gifts of language and music last for a lifetime! They keep you young at heart and engaged in the world. I know this and did this for my family and they let me know how grateful they are to have grown up that way. Katherine knew this too.
same lessons she had charities pay for. Con artist
Does anyone see what is happening? The comments on Catherine are all the same symptoms these parental alienation claim is done the father’s. Apparently she was the devil’s daughter. According to Allan the girlfriend and the family court players. This woman had a successful career for many years. Friends for many years. This doesn’t add up?
“Noting that Catherine is from Canada, that’s a country that many people have suggested is pretty enlightened when it comes to “post-national” identity — social bonds based on empathy rather than jingoism — but that’s not just some abstract political ideology. It’s more like overcoming how people care about group identity because it’s a kind of ready-made peer group. Your acquaintances from church, the socioeconomic homogeneity of your neighbors, racial segregation, etc., ensure that you have at least casual friendships and a predictable social milieu (unlike trying to make friends across cultural boundaries, where there’s likely to be more awkwardness, not sure what to say, how to bond via the proper lingo — “you’re the first person I’ll call after the Sabbath”, that sort of thing — without such norms people do tend to become more reticent and introverted). Casual friendships can be an important emotional support, but it goes too far to set them in competition with children, as if you’re raising kids with an eye to how they appear in the eyes of your extended community rather than forming intense and private parent/child bonds.“
Paul and Timothy were two guys who lived on earth about two thousand years ago.
They wrote a few letters to say basically what you said up there, except they thought religion had everything to do with parents and children. Good to see there’s a public forum where we can openly and honestly discuss religion in the context of the world’s modern “family courts”.
These kinds of polite conversations are long overdue.
“… According to Habermas, a variety of factors resulted in the eventual decay of the public sphere, including the growth of a commercial mass media, which turned the critical public into a passive consumer public; and the welfare state, which merged the state with society so thoroughly that the public sphere was squeezed out. It also turned the “public sphere” into a site of self-interested contestation for the resources of the state rather than a space for the development of a public-minded rational consensus …”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas
Let me quote an article called “Habermas, Modernity and the Welfare State” by Christopher Pierson: “Habermas sees the action of the founders of the welfare state being almost exclusively directed towards ‘the taming of capitalism’, and this primarily through the use of state power which they (mistakenly) regarded as neutral or ‘innocent’.” But he points out that Habermas defended the *goals* of this project, quoting Habermas directly: the “goal is the establishment of forms of life which are structured according to egalitarian standards and which at the same time open up arenas for individual self-fulfillment and spontaneity” — the problem is “a contradiction between goal and method.”
For me this means “the welfare state” deserves criticism when it serves as an agent of state control. But that doesn’t imply governments should have no “safety net” for citizens — it suggests instead that social welfare programs should be administered by independent organizations (non-profits, NGOs, private businesses) rather than by government employees directly. So how can we hold (e.g.) non-profits accountable? By stipulating that their autonomy in performing public service is contingent on their providing rational and impartial documentation that their actions and decisions are scientifically well-grounded and non-self-serving. In effect, via discourse ethics, which is arguably the core of Habermassian thought.
From the “Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics”: “Discourse ethics articulates a perspective on morality based on communicative rationality. It holds it to be possible to justify universal moral norms on the basis of rational argumentation in practical discourse, if [there is] discourse without any form of coercion. In bioethics, above all, its focus [is] on inclusion, participation and democracy [and] allows for truthfinding in pluralistic settings.”
So I don’t believe social welfare is somehow incompatible with Habermassian moral-political theory.
By analogy, “Single Payer” health-care systems don’t need to have centralized state bureaucracies controlling everything from smoke-filled rooms. There’s probably just as much medicine and health-care entrepreneurship and enterprise autonomy in Canada and the UK as there is in the US (corporate centralization inhibits entrepreneurs just as much as government overreach, at least in my opinion).
“So how can we hold (e.g.) non-profits accountable? By stipulating that their autonomy in performing public service is contingent on their providing rational and impartial documentation that their actions and decisions are scientifically well-grounded and non-self-serving. In effect, via discourse ethics, which is arguably the core of Habermassian thought.”
That seems to be the problem. Psychologist Martha Stout says in her book, “The Sociopath Next Door” about 1 in 25 people have no conscience. With so little oversight and accountability for non-profits and for-profits, pharmaceutical and family court industries will keep pushing exact opposite of public service with monopolized industries that were supposed to help, not exploit.
As long as gatekeepers of the discourse work for profit and “non-profits”, our goodwill in comments will probably continue to accomplish nothing after 11:31 pm and 7:48 am. Sorry, I’m just feeling a little bitter lately. The warmongers still do so much damage to so many — and so many let them get away with it.
I think the evidence you are referring to are two pieces of video, one in which K is yelling at A to sit down and write about her behavioral experience at school (related to lying). K was very serious about an ethical education for her kids, and very worried about this child. She was at her wits’ end, and it showed in that video, but her intention was not to be a “drill sergeant” as you said but to get her child to recognize and focus on the problem. Other videos show her in a softer posture with that child.
There is another video with A where K is very upset about her missing chocolate bar. I think K was over the top in this video, and I think she had other options in dealing with her child in this scenario. But my view does not change, that her intention toward her child was good, she was concerned for her child’s behavior.
K also was reacting at times to situations with the kids against a background of goading and undermining by her husband, who never missed a chance to gaslight her and to try to undo her parenting. K was operating in a home environment where she was abused, and her kids too. Under a lot of stress, and with heavy health concerns.
And yet, she persisted.
11:19 pm, Thank you for that comment.
Want to better see your perspective, can you tell me more about how you see KvK as a case where parents (specifically Katherine) were “invested in peer relations” rather than in nurturance?
I didn’t see her as a drill sergeant, rather as scared for her kid’s future (yes she did exclaim to her kid that she wouldn’t have any friends if she kept lying, etc. ). We don’t get to see much of their relationships, but we did see them in a softer light a times, and definitely in moments where she was trying to protect them.
I am not sure how one can come away from evidence thinking that we have any clear picture at all that Katherine was not a nurturing mother. Teaching/speaking French to them, and engaging them musically is nurture, those are lifelong gifts. On the contrary, those who have spoken for Katherine, her female friends, state that she loved her children so very much.
As the top-level comment author here, let me just say that we as the “public” are working with limited information. What *we* can see is several occasions where Catherine, and on other occasions Allan, mistreated their children way beyond “over the top”. Maybe these videos/audios are not representative of either parents’ interactions most of the time — and nor are affidavits describing other similar incidents that have been published — and maybe those who knew the family possess a more complete picture.
Moreover, maybe Catherine’s frustrations derived from a real injustice — Allan’s money and contacts ganging up on her while overlooking his own disturbing actions. Very well if this case’s attention compels more people to learn of the need for family court reform.
But it doesn’t help anything to sugarcoat the audios/videos — of both parents — that we *can* see. The best someone could say is that these are terrible moments, but singular. I really don’t understand how shouting and coercing can be construed as “educating” a child. If you want to encourage a child to realize that lying or stealing can be hurtful to another person, that can be done quietly and compassionately. After all, shouldn’t we be trying to model the ethical behavior we want children to value?
Look, thinking back to my kiddie baseball days, there are contexts where mentors/coaches might take a more confrontational tack. When you’re playing sports the whole point is to try and be stronger and quicker; it’s a very physical environment. Or when you’re hauling construction debris or wood logs or heavy furniture (all of which I’ve done in brief interregnums from a life vaguely on the periphery of academia) you can accept bosses being a little more gruff and in-your-face. It’s because the nature of the work you’re doing and the goals of the group require everyone to persevere through (mild) physical discomfort.
What I can’t fathom is why bring (a de facto parody of) that culture — magnified and exaggerated — into a professional home with young children? These aren’t 20-year-olds volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. I would think, given their background, the parents’ default mannerisms around the children would be modeled after a Q&A session during a scientific conference, not a gang of testerone-addled dudes hauling plasterboard.
I hope this doesn’t sound elitist — I look up to testosterone-addled dudes, and I think skilled laborers should earn higher salaries than tenured professors. But I’m searching for explanations for why parents whose formative years were more ivy-league than blue-collar would treat kids with a union-buster rather than intellectual-mentor demeanor. That’s why I wrote about “peer groups” and ethno-nationalism and all that.
As a former school teacher I have in fact seen a few times when parents who are very status-conscious — usually within a specific ethnic or religious group — seem to project a certain lack of emotional warmth with their children, as if they’re holding back a lot of attention that a more nurturant parent would devote to kids, wanting to stay “in thick” (à la Brooks’s “thick communities”) with their inter-generational groups. Notwithstanding how a “technocratic” work force is trained to parse the social contract in terms of rational governance, not group solidarity, people’s peer-group attachments can make professional institutions less rigorously rationalistic — it makes law and business, say, different than science or medicine. In theory (my theory, anyhow) the emotional pull of nurturant parenting actually pulls ego-investment *away from* ethno-religious group-identification, and this actually opens the space for scientific government — (benevolently) technocratic social institutions and nurturant parenting go hand-in-hand and are mutually reinforcing/necessary, which I think is one step beyond the synthesis Lakoff creatively fashions in “Moral Politics”. But that humanist dialectic didn’t seem to follow quite the expected Habermassian script in the Kassenoff household … Still, please counter if I’m being unpersuasive. It’s good to workshop these issues, modulo the sad circumstances surrounding them.
Hmm … I think any father’s first parenting book should be Rick McIntyre’s Reign of Wolf 21. But for the second, you could do worse than Habermas’s The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere …
By the way, nice shout-out to Jamie and Sherpa. 21 deserved to retire like Sherpie, sleeping on hotel beds in Aberbrothock and eating takeout chinese chicken balls and ice-cream cones, not laying down to die on a windswept hill by Opal Creek. At least Sherps knows people love him. 21 and 42 might have been the most beloved wild animals in the history of planet Earth, yet they had barely any idea that humans even exist. I mean, people literally cried when the Mollies got 42.
Cheers, mate. Yeah, if folks elsewhere on this page are going to finesse cryptic hints about forestalling Anti-Semitism we can reminisce on the Druids. Which is a pleasanter topic. Agreed that 21 would have seen himself in Jamie Larder. Allan Kassenoff, not so much.
I’m def a fan of Rick McIntyre. So, Lakoff wrote “Moral Politics” in 1996. Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods wrote “Survival of the Friendliest” in 2020 — just to take two prominent examples of the “Nurturant Parent” model qua theoretical postulate. I think it’s fair to gloss Hare/Woods that way. So, what’s the missing link? “Survival” is inspired by dogs and bonobos, mostly. I don’t think their ethological data comes from wolves much. But I wonder how much stories like the 21/42 love affair percolated through science in the interim. It’s like 21 is a totemic being of the modern age. I’m not sure there’s any other wild animal that literally inspired a paradigm-shift — I don’t mean as a subject of observation, but as a personality humans admired and emulated. An important school of modern moral philosophy, in effect, was literally founded in part by a wolf.
For anyone not on a first-name basis with Yellowstone wolfpacks and telegenic malamutes, incidentally, the relevant point for this page is that nurturance is primordial, and something suppressed it in KvK. “Humanity is Canid emotions in a Primate intellect.” That’s what we’re looking for and not finding.
Homo Sapiens are altricial, not precocial. If we didn’t have genes encoding for love and attention to babies (and then children, by extension), we wouldn’t have survived as a species.
How is having dogs like raising kids, and why would we ever want to live in world designed by Habermas???
For all intents and purposes we *do* live in a world designed by Habermas. One could agree or disagree with Covid mandates, e.g., but we have to acknowledge that government officials felt the need (and did need) to justify their policies via scientific evidence (as best as such existed at any given time). The CDC didn’t have a private militia patrolling the streets to enforce arbitrary curfews. Same thing with almost any major policy issue — global warming targets, environmental protections, Fed interest rates, and so on and so forth.
Not to mention — vis-à-vis Habermas — why is almost everyone here singling out family court as the biggest villains in KvK? Because they are not sufficiently impartial. I.e, they are biased, self-interested — not deliberative. Or more precisely their self-interest *should* be to be unbiased, because that’s what would make them competent arbiters of the public sphere, which in turn allows them to keep their job. Whether or not they articulate it that way, I imagine every commenter here feels that family court officials have not been properly held to that standard. IMHO that’s for all intents and purposes a Habermassian standard!
In two parts. First, we shouldn’t be hoping for people to turn away from their religions or ethnicities, but rather to build bridges between them, on the basis of our broader humanity, our common suffering, etc. We can all continue to refer back to and define ourselves to some extent by the history we believe we came from, and still reserve a significant piece of ourselves for citizenship. This doesn’t have to be a French laic model either, as our Constitution sustains free exercise in the public square.
Not sure where Habermas fits into our politics, and this hope of yours for purer technocracy, less religion, well no I do not share this dream/nightmare. Professional people shouldn’t be religious because they are trained scientifically? Come on now. Science and religion go hand in hand, there is plenty of mystery out there, always will be, and awe at the workings of science. Why do you prefer a world without faith?
Two. People yell sometimes, kids are not easy! (Though I will say again that these parents were totally losing it with kids in some of these video, on K’s part because of the PTSD from abuse and health, and on husband’s part because he was a name-calling jerk. But K was trying to accomplish something with her child around important behavioral issues, not sure what husband was trying to accomplish, he was just fed up.) Couples yell too, and even break plates! This is an ethnic thing to some extent, yes. How anxiety is processed.
The measure is how much yelling versus softer and calmer contact, how much love and guidance happens, nurture, both in tougher and softer moments. And apologies for loss of temper from kids to parents, parent to kids, this is all human. Who wants to live in a world where people don’t ever shout, how is that any fun? And the dog videos are good parenting? If you will, what is your ethnic background, and why are you afraid of emotion in parenting? Perhaps you have never parented?
Wow, thanks for a thoughtful conversation. Also I’d like to apologize for a double-post; somehow a morning post which I resent after it was unprocessed by nighttime re-appeared a full day after I wrote it, so now there’s two copies. This site seems a bit buggy. Anyhow — speaking for myself, no, I’m not a dad, but I did teach grade-school age children for a few years, so I dealt with hundreds of parents. I get it’s not directly comparable. But teachers interact with kids for almost as many hours of the day as mom and dad — we need to think of ourselves as custodial parents — and since our attention is divided among many students it’s just as easy to be stressed when one kid misbehaves, wanders off during a field trip, etc. But we work very hard at not losing patience. I never once raised my voice to a child.
I certainly am not trying to criticize religion. I acknowledge that laicité can potentially suppress legitimate exercise of personal autonomy, like denying someone the right to wear a veil if that’s an authentic form of self-expression for them. I would just say that religious groups can become a source of intra-group antagonisms that are harmful, partly for policy/social-justice reasons (in terms of citizens’ support for egalitarian government) but also because infighting does not alleviate the unhappiness which drives it. But this isn’t an issue about religion itself — I’ve seen similar dynamics within political activist groups, within academic circles, etc.
“Purer technocracy” just means people doing their jobs properly — the more knowledge we have (i.e., as a society) about the health, environment, architecture, product safety, etc., the more that our professional responsibilities involve translating scientific knowledge to concrete practice. The “service sector” is technocratic in that sense but also even agriculture (farmers using crops’ genetic profile to increase yields and ecological sustenance), manufacturing, construction, medicine, etc. I don’t see any contravariance between “technocracy” and “religion” (“technocratic” ideologies from the early 1900s may have had their own agenda, but we shouldn’t jettison the concept as penance for that, any more than people who call themselves “social democrats” fear they’ll be compared in good faith to Stalin or Chavez).
About Jamie Larder, I’m actually serious in suggesting that his relationship with Sherpa is a good model for parenting (i.e., of human children). He’s very attentive but in a discrete way, so maybe Sherpa is 100 yards in front or behind when walking the moors and Jamie doesn’t get upset, but there’s always a fresh water bottle at hand and steps to climb up into the van. When I was a teacher I looked for examples like that as sort of mnemonics for being protective of my charges but leaving them free to explore things and ideas — I wanted them to think of me as an ally and a source of trust and safety.
“Who wants to live in a world where people don’t ever shout”? This isn’t about mom and dad yelling for a moment when a kid was about to run into the street or something. Relentlessly berating a child for minutes on end while the child sobs uncontrollably isn’t “shouting”. I think it’s the emotional equivalent of actual violence.
Imagine this: a bad day, you’re out of focus and not very productive at work, and your boss comes over and grabs your neck, presses you against a wall, and says “wake up, man!” Then he gives you a shove back to your post or desk or whatever. Technically, a kind of assault. Or maybe you get in an argument and he literally throws a punch, even if it’s not injurious. Now compare that to this: he takes you in a room, forces you to sit down, and yells for 10 minutes straight, insisting that you write something on a piece of paper and making it impossible for you to say anything by repeating “you’re a liar” when you try to talk.
My guess is that coming home at the end of the day you’d be more upset by the second scenario and more anxious about returning to work the next morning than with the first scenario. I.e., #2 is really worse than the literal physical assault of #1.
Can we learn anything from people here seemingly eager to downplay these parents’ treatment of their children by saying it’s just a little shouting or just dealing with “behavioral issues”? What evidence is there that they even had behavioral issues, if something as innocent as taking some chocolate from the fridge is construed as some horrible “theft”?
We can feel sorry for Catherine without downplaying the hurtful nature of how she acted around the children. If we don’t acknowledge how traumatic that could be for them then we can understand how you get something like daughters fed up that no one seems to care about *them*, about the effect this all had on them. From the transcripts on FR: “I want to go home. I don’t want to come here. I never wanted to, okay? I don’t like you. And before you say, Oh, Allan’s making me say this because I know you’re gonna. I don’t want to accept coming here. But I have to because I have no options.” Listen to the last line: I have no options. The kids feel as if they’re suffering and they have no control over the situation to make it better. Society acting like we’re not paying attention to them because everyone wants to side with either Allan or Catherine doesn’t help.
Wow, thanks for a thoughtful conversation. Speaking for myself, no, I’m not a dad, but I did teach grade-school age children for a few years, so I dealt with hundreds of parents. I get it’s not directly comparable. But teachers interact with kids for almost as many hours of the day as mom and dad — we need to think of ourselves as custodial parents — and since our attention is divided among many students it’s just as easy to be stressed when one kid misbehaves, wanders off during a field trip, etc. But we work very hard at not losing patience. I never once raised my voice to a child.
I certainly am not trying to criticize religion. I acknowledge that laicité can potentially suppress legitimate exercise of personal autonomy, like denying someone the right to wear a veil if that’s an authentic form of self-expression for them. I would just say that religious groups can become a source of intra-group antagonisms that are harmful, partly for policy/social-justice reasons (in terms of citizens’ support for egalitarian government) but also because infighting does not alleviate the unhappiness which drives it. But this isn’t an issue about religion itself — I’ve seen similar dynamics within political activist groups, within academic circles, etc.
“Purer technocracy” just means people doing their jobs properly — the more knowledge we have (i.e., as a society) about the health, environment, architecture, product safety, etc., the more that our professional responsibilities involve translating scientific knowledge to concrete practice. The “service sector” is technocratic in that sense but also even agriculture (farmers using crops’ genetic profile to increase yields and ecological sustenance), manufacturing, construction, medicine, etc. I don’t see any contravariance between “technocracy” and “religion” (“technocratic” ideologies from the early 1900s may have had their own agenda, but we shouldn’t jettison the concept as penance for that, any more than people who call themselves “social democrats” fear they’ll be compared in good faith to Stalin or Chavez).
About Jamie Larder, I’m actually serious in suggesting that his relationship with Sherpa is a good model for parenting (i.e., of human children). He’s unassuming, caring, not self-centered; and very attentive but in a discreet way, so maybe Sherpa is 100 yards in front or behind when walking the moors and Jamie doesn’t get upset, but there’s always a fresh water bottle at hand and steps to climb up into the van. When I was a teacher I looked for examples like that as sort of mnemonics for being protective of my charges but leaving them free to explore things and ideas — I wanted them to think of me as an ally and a source of trust and safety.
And also Jamie doesn’t seem to get stuck up on superficial things, like an expensive house or clothes. His car and the van (“little red” and “big red”) look fancy but he got them second-hand and fixed them up manually. You can tell his love for Sherpa (and his human daughter Sarah) is most important. He does go on trips to visit historic sites in the UK but finances them via the youtube channel — he does a great job filming locations so a lot of people watch them, it’s like seeing a travel show on PBS. And he tends to sleep in the van rather than spend on lodging, kind of like the backpacking trip around Europe lucky people took in their 20s, only with a sweet dog. Like, budget-conscious Rick Steves for dog dads. It’s a brilliant premise. I’m writing this because I agree Jamie and Sherpa are a good counter-weight to everything people find objectionable in the Kassenoff case: loving, not hating; modest, not materialistic; curious about history, not exploiting history to pit religions against one another.
Disagree with your premise that we should like in a world where parent-child relationships are too much like that of dog owner and dog. We are people set in time, in history, we come with value-laden, soulful stories, including faith stories, and it is a Beautiful thing that we teach them to our kids, not a thing to be eliminated by technocratic living. Our belief systems are what makes life meaningful, and even where they clash, further meaning and beauty emerge from learning to live together! CK had this knowledge, and this passion that I am voicing here.
As parents we are carry forward those value-laden soulful stories. C berated her child on camera (as was stated before, all the context was missing) and this was not good parenting, but it was real parenting, and her goal was correct, that wanting her kid to understand the gravity of and to Focus on the problem (lying and or stealing).
As for your contention that stealing and lying are not a big deal, they are. These are bedrock principles of the cooperation necessary for living together in society, which you yourself ( I am speaking to both “nurture not culture” and “keep the focus on the children”). Teachers don’t have the same level of commitment/ emotional investment that parents do an any particular faith tradition, but they do need to transmit civic culture, right? They should be trying to get kids to see that lying and stealing are not optimal for living peacefully together, right?
Your point of view promotes family relationships which are stripped of real emotional connections, transmission of culture, etc. Children are not dogs, we have a lot more potential for good and evil, too, and to reduce us to canine level, well this is not a beautiful way to live, not at all.
Your perspective also aims us toward an antiseptic, technocratic, faith-free society, and this is what Habermas leads to, thus my comment that who wants to live in a world that enforces rules designed by someone as devoid of soul as Habermas!
Your technocracy favors taking kids away from people like this woman, who make mistakes in education, but who passionately love their children. That is what your technocracy does, because it has a built in bias away from faith and ethics education, which inherently involve levels of emotion, as well as rationality. Under your regime, the child will go to the parent who is calmest, no matter what bs they teach their kids, or more likely despite the fact that they either teach their kids very little, or they teach them that it is ok to lie and steal. We don’t wanna live in your world!
I just want to push back on the idea that Allan and Catherine’s abusive parenting– I don’t mean all the times, but at least on occasion — was really some sort of noble effort to “transmit civic culture”. Watch the video published by Robbie Harvey where Allan throws the girl’s toys on the floor so that she cleans her room “better” or Catherine’s now-infamous “chocolate bar” and “you’re lying about the email” audios. Do you really believe that they stood there a few minutes before these were recorded and said to themselves: “hmm, now’s a good time for a civics lesson”? Isn’t the more likely explanation that Allan and Catherine were just acting out self-centered anger which they had little reason to derive from their children (as opposed to from each other, or the courts, or whatever)? What does a room not cleaned up “enough” have to do with civics? How is taking something from the fridge “stealing”? Do you and your spouse have separate refrigerator shelves and consider the stuff there “private property” which your spouse would be “stealing”, as if it were the communal fridge in a youth hostel?
I really don’t understand how pretending Allan and Catherine’s parenting was “not a big deal” (to repeat the commenter’s words in the context of their sense I was deeming lying and stealing that way) advances the cause of family court reform. On the contrary, the primary motivation for family court reform should be to avoid contentious divorces which leave the children exposed to these kinds of traumas. The only way I can understand minimizing the bad parenting is to say that Allan and/or Catherine were very loving and nurturing most of the time but had a few bad moments. I hope that’s the case, but that doesn’t make the bad moments less bad.
I also realize that stress and fear can provoke primordial fight-or-flight reactions that trigger exaggerated anger-reactions. But this unhinged anger is especially mystifying because it’s directed at CHILDREN. Whatever happens these are still upper-middle-class professionals whose economic status shields them from a lot of typical day-to-day stressors. They’re not about to be foreclosed on their home, lying in bed afraid of an eviction notice in the morning, lacking money to buy food — I know Catherine was unfairly kicked out of her house, but she could afford to find alternative lodging; she didn’t end up living in a homeless shelter. At some point Catherine had the cancer recurrence; Allan didn’t have any stressors at that level. Do we think the fear of cancer was so overwhelming that it evoked a fight-or-flight response even in the midst of trivial things like someone else taking the chocolate from the fridge?
Let me repeat something: children trust parents because they believe parents feel the child’s pain as their own pain, and so are motivated to protect the child as if they are protecting themselves. Love exists when people have that kind of telepathic connection. It should be obvious when “teaching” a child about something like ethics and civic virtue has descended into something causing the child pain if the child starts crying uncontrollably — and when the child starts crying, why not stop? Why go on and on making it worse? If the child is in pain then aren’t you in pain too, and why are you causing yourself pain? It just seems to me that in these moments the parents are breaking the telepathic bonds with their children, and we haven’t sufficiently explained why they were able to do so. Why didn’t their nurturant instincts not override the stressors that were fueling their anger?
As for “civic society” isn’t that ultimately based on reciprocal caring? We mirror both happiness and sadness around us. The doctor wants their patient to be healed, the teacher wants a student to ace the test, an architect is happy when a family loves their new home, a curator is pleased to discover new creative talent, a violinist thrills to the audience’s pleasure at a soulfully rendered concerto. Those fortunate enough to have rewarding careers are immersed in opportunities to create positive outcomes. Isn’t it the sum total of these mutually beneficial interactions the building blocks of civil society? Faith communities and other social groups help initiate collective bonds but isn’t their true purpose to serve as a catalyst for relationships that are positive on their own terms? For myself I don’t believe “cultural tradition” is some abstraction that exists outside of countless little nurturant episodes and relationships woven through day-to-day lives, as if adversarial social conditions can be legitimated so long as people are playing out some theater of cultural transmission in the process. Instead the “bedrock principles of the cooperation necessary for living together” are people’s everyday moments cooperating! In my opinion.
I just want to push back on the idea that Allan and Catherine’s abusive parenting — I don’t mean all the times, but at least on occasion — was really some sort of noble effort to “transmit civic culture”. Watch the video published by Robbie Harvey where Allan throws the girl’s toys on the floor so that she cleans her room “better” or Catherine’s now-infamous “chocolate bar” and “you’re lying about the email” audios. Do you really believe that they stood there a few minutes before these were recorded and said to themselves: “hmm, now’s a good time for a civics lesson”? Isn’t the more likely explanation that Allan and Catherine were just acting out self-centered anger which they had little reason to derive from their children (as opposed to from each other, or the courts, or whatever)? What does a room not cleaned up “enough” have to do with civics? How is taking something from the fridge “stealing”? Do you and your spouse have separate refrigerator shelves and consider the stuff there “private property” which your spouse would be “stealing”, as if it were the communal fridge in a youth hostel?
I really don’t understand how pretending Allan and Catherine’s parenting was “not a big deal” (to repeat the commenter’s words in the context of their sense I was deeming lying and stealing that way) advances the cause of family court reform. On the contrary, the primary motivation for family court reform should be to avoid contentious divorces which leave the children exposed to these kinds of traumas. The only way I can understand minimizing the bad parenting is to say that Allan and/or Catherine were very loving and nurturing most of the time but had a few bad moments. I hope that’s the case, but that doesn’t make the bad moments less bad.
I also realize that stress and fear can provoke primordial fight-or-flight reactions that trigger exaggerated anger-reactions. But this unhinged anger is especially mystifying because it’s directed at CHILDREN. Whatever happens these are still upper-middle-class professionals whose economic status shields them from a lot of typical day-to-day stressors. They’re not about to be foreclosed on their home, lying in bed afraid of an eviction notice in the morning, lacking money to buy food — I know Catherine was unfairly kicked out of her house, but she could afford to find alternative lodging; she didn’t end up living in a homeless shelter. At some point Catherine had the cancer recurrence; Allan didn’t have any stressors at that level. Do we think the fear of cancer was so overwhelming that it evoked a fight-or-flight response even in the midst of trivial things like someone else taking the chocolate from the fridge?
Let me repeat something: children trust parents because they believe parents feel the child’s pain as their own pain, and so are motivated to protect the child as if they are protecting themselves. Love exists when people have that kind of telepathic connection. It should be obvious when “teaching” a child about something like ethics and civic virtue has descended into something causing the child pain if the child starts crying uncontrollably — and when the child starts crying, why not stop? Why go on and on making it worse? If the child is in pain then aren’t you in pain too, and why are you causing yourself pain? It just seems to me that in these moments the parents are breaking the telepathic bonds with their children, and we haven’t sufficiently explained why they were able to do so. Why didn’t their nurturant instincts not override the stressors that were fueling their anger?
As for “civic society” isn’t that ultimately based on reciprocal caring? We mirror both happiness and sadness around us. The doctor wants their patient to be healed, the teacher wants a student to ace the test, an architect is happy when a family loves their new home, a curator is pleased to discover new creative talent, a violinist thrills to the audience’s pleasure at a soulfully rendered concerto. Those fortunate enough to have rewarding careers are immersed in opportunities to create positive outcomes. Isn’t it the sum total of these mutually beneficial interactions the building blocks of civil society? Faith communities and other social groups help initiate collective bonds but isn’t their true purpose to serve as a catalyst for relationships that are positive on their own terms? For myself I don’t believe “cultural tradition” is some abstraction that exists outside of countless little nurturant episodes and relationships woven through day-to-day lives, as if adversarial social conditions can be legitimated so long as people are playing out some theater of cultural transmission in the process. Instead the “bedrock principles of the cooperation necessary for living together” are people’s everyday moments cooperating! In my opinion.
“Keep the focus on children!”,
Here’s your comment June 26, 2023 at 2:15 pm:
“… Not to mention — vis-à-vis Habermas — why is almost everyone here singling out family court as the biggest villains in KvK? Because they are not sufficiently impartial. I.e, they are biased, self-interested — not deliberative. …”
Are you totally unaware of the international family court crisis? Or, perhaps you have a some ulterior motive here?
Have you heard of the damage family courts have done?
Yes. Isn’t that my point? We both agree family courts have done damage. Why do we agree on this? I think it’s because we feel they are self-serving and lack compassion for people like Catherine. Whereas if they were impartial and tried to understand situations from multiple angles they would be properly fulfilling the trust we as a society place in them, they being de facto civil servants operating in the public sphere. Could you clarify if/why you think objecting to family court on those terms amounts to covering up the harm they have caused?
“Keep the focus on children!” at June 26, 2023 at 1:55 am:
Your “top-level” comment was great until: “I really don’t understand how shouting and coercing can be construed as “educating” a child. If you want to encourage a child to realize that lying or stealing can be hurtful to another person, that can be done quietly and compassionately. After all, shouldn’t we be trying to model the ethical behavior we want children to value?”
Religious bias in the context of that purposely adversarial child custody case … plus cancer, plus PTSD, plus Allan’s infidelity, plus the deceit and collusion of several family court actors involved in that case, plus stress at work because of all of the stress in the “family court” case seem to have been the deadly combination that sent Catherine over the edge as seen in those videos a few times. As the saying goes, walk a mile in her shoes to have a better understanding.
Not sure what Allan’s stressors might have been. Probably “BigLaw” — not sure what else.
Not judging either one here, as it’s not our place to judge. Judging was the judges’ job.
The punishment the whole family endured in exchange for $3,000,000 over the course of four long years of hell seems to say the judges who destroyed the family failed miserably.
May I both agree and disagree? For the first, sure, we should feel compassion for Catherine. We should feel bad that this whole family couldn’t live happier lives. We shouldn’t criticize people in a combative manner. We need to remember we don’t “really know what it’s like” (great Everlast song there) to walk in their shoes.
But my disagreement is that compassion and “judging” go hand in hand if the judging is done politely and thoughtfully. Our compassion for Catherine is also judging Marc Abrams for denying her custody. Our compassion for her daughters is also judging Catherine for scaring them. You’re judging me — and I appreciate it — maybe for sounding inconsiderate to Catherine. Many people are judging Allan. Why should we not judge? No, would should not judge with meanness or an intent to hurt the one being judged. We should not judge with arrogance like “a” judge ruling from the bench. We should judge the way scientists express opinions, waiting to be challenged and admitting our own finitude. Isn’t that Habermassian? Isn’t judging part of discourse ethics? How can we have civilized dialog about right and wrong without judgment involved?
I keep coming back to this: folks seem to think family court reform will be advanced by trying to get people to ignore how *both* parents mistreated the kids. I really don’t understand that. The whole point of the family court proceedings being traumatizing for Catherine is that she felt great sadness at being separated from her children. But if she was so emotionally invested in them why would she cause them trauma by yelling like that? When we love someone we’re supposed to feel their pain like our own pain, so to *cause* them pain is to cause ourselves pain. Acknowledging that Catherine *sometimes* acted self-centered — meaning that in those moments she was loving her children less, because she was feeling her own pain and not her children’s pain through herself — doesn’t mean we blame Catherine for what happened. The family courts did this to her. She was a victim. But ignoring the audio and paperwork on FR and kassenofffacts.com simply gives Marc Adams, Carol Most, Judge Lidell, et. al. an excuse to justify their conduct. They’ll say: “we weren’t biased because of religion; we we’re greedy for money; we made a sound decision based on Catherine’s behavior”. As far as I can see the best response to this attitude is to acknowledge that Catherine’s behavior was problematic but remind people that this behavior was caused by family court in the first place!
“But the flip side is a tendency to act as if emotional abuse by mothers is less dangerous or less worthy of censure, compared to fathers.”
Of course, the flip side to that flip side is the tendency to wonder what caused that mother to be so extremely stressed.
Extreme stress makes many people act that same way. Catherine had symptoms of PTSD. How many “experts” noted Catherine’s symptoms of PTSD in that “family court” case?
“Keeping the focus on the children”, would you blame Catherine for having PTSD?
“Keeping the focus on the children”, would you also blame war veterans with PSTD for having PTSD?
Family courts in Westchester county can sometimes look like war zones, right? Angry people everywhere, some yelling and some crying. How many parents and children develop symptoms of PTSD as they’re forced through those mandatory “family court” proceedings?
Who designed “family courts” to be for-profit purposely adversarial battlefields where the most dangerous child custody proceedings continue for years?
What does the data show for health changes, financial changes and emotional changes before/after “family courts”?
Keeping the focus on the children, have you found that for-profit purposely adversarial battlefields with no oversight and no accountability cause PTSD in parents and children?
If “family court” proceedings cause PTSD, are “family courts” the best place to manage child custody cases?
What it is about Westchester “family court” that caused Allen, Catherine and the children so much physical, financial and emotional harm? A vacation in Hawaii wouldn’t cause that kind of stress for that family. Neither would a family movie night.
After all the public relations, CYA antics and spin, maybe an expert somewhere will tell us what caused the whole family to act the way they did after four years of hell in Westchester County “family courts”.
I agree with you! I hope this case *does* inspire family court reform. We might certainly believe that family courts caused, amplified, or (in Allan’s case) tacitly endorsed the cringeworthy behavior of these parents. But it’s impossible to make that point without acknowledging that their behavior was indeed cringeworthy. If people aren’t outraged by the dark place where this family ended up, why should they care enough to feel anger toward the legal and medical professionals that profited from them?
Cringeworthy? Why focus on their parenting under extreme stress, instead of the sources of stress, namely the court system, and the husband’s abuse of his wife? Your initial comment totally ignored these factors, and went right for the jugular about how they were parenting. How is this helpful?
I’m sorry if the tone of my comments sound angry, like “going for the jugular”. I’m trying to express my belief — informed in part by experience as an educator (grade-school teacher) and in part by cognitive science, as I understand it — that “educating” children simply doesn’t work via yelling and physical intimidation. We can agree that Catherine shouldn’t be depicted as nothing but a bad person due to sporadic incidents on her worst days — to defend her on those terms — but I object to defending her (and Allan too) by suggesting that their behavior is a legitimate way to “educate”.
I’m interested in the Human Self-Domestication (HSD) hypothesis because it has a cognitive as well as moral dimension. In the short form, the point is basically that kindness and empathy make us smarter — a prosocial mindset neurologically shapes the mind in ways that increase intelligence and cognitive adaptation. HSD proponents believe that there is ethological, neurological, and genomic evidence for these ideas (cf. examples such as the Novosibirsk fox experiment, Brian Hare’s gesture-pointing tests in The Genius of Dogs, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh’s research on bonobos, gene expressions analogous to humans’ Williams-Beuren Syndrome, etc.). Myself, I’ve sort of been exploring how/whether these effects can actually, at least to a limited extent, be simulated computationally.
If I may I want to give the last word (my last word, anyhow) to Edmund Husserl, from Cartesian Meditations:
“I experience others at the same time as subjects for this world, as experiencing it (this same world that I experience) and, in so doing, experiencing me too, even as I experience the world and others in it … I experience the world … not as (so to speak) my private synthetic formation but as other than mine alone, as an intersubjective world, actually there for everyone.
The range of such a theory is much greater than at first it seems, because it contributes to the founding of a transcendental theory of the Objective world itself.
There is a second ego, not simply there, but rather constituted as ‘alter ego’ … How can my own ego ‘experience something other’? Something, that is, with a sense that excludes the constituted from the concrete make-up of the sense-constituting I-myself, as somehow the latter’s analogue? The question concerns everyone outside of me; but more than that it concerns everything that acquires sense-determinations from them: in short, the whole of the Objective World.”
No need for outrage or anger. Curiosity and the desire to help will do the trick.
One question might be: Who and what led that family to “the dark place”?
Local, state and federal investigators investigating the crimes committed in the case have their work cut out for them. Whistleblowers and eye-witnesses will help much more than outraged angry people.
Many have come forward the court and the state shut them up
This is an excellent synopsis of the TRUTH. No embellishment. Even judge Koba stated in 2021 that Catherine deserved more time with her children, and Gus Dimopoulos attacked that theory by requiring MORE supervision that Catherine was required to pay for (even though at that time she was unemployed).
It should be noted that Gus uses the ‘over litigation’ tactic as his litigation tactic. Gus will set the stage to handcuff the opposition and then when the opposition fights back he screams and cries that the opposition is “over litigating” and states “it will never end”. This is all the Gus Dimopoulos modus operandi. Gus hates when he is on defense and tries to fabricate a new narrative as the victim.
The Kassenoff girls are victims.
Catherine is a victim.
Atty Bruggemann is a narcist who rides Gus’s coattails. Atty is one of the worst lawyers in the world. She struggles to speak a sentence in open court.
Gus Dimopoulos is a narcist psychopath who believes his own bullshit and lies whenever such is helpful to him.
Catherine promised to expose Gus, Atty, Lewis Lubell, Nancy Quinn Koba, Irene Ratner, Marc Abrams and the entire matrimonial injustice players.
This story shows the scheme.
Yes, but by your logic, we must not believe a word Dr. Brandt says because she was paid BY CATHERINE.
Catherine wrote the checks to Brandt 100%, didn’t even split them with Allan, apparently, so of course Brandt is going to side with her client. She works for Catherine and needs to keep the money rolling in.
And Catherine also paid Culley? Hmmmm. 🤔
This is an important case to study.
It doesn’t matter who paid which vendors. What matters is the work product — probably the reason Catherine posted original documents.
The case must be fully investigated. Given the national and international interest in the case, it can serve as an example of what family court vendors must not EVER do in ANY family court case ever again — anywhere in the world.
The “family court” corruption pandemic spread all over the world in the 1970s and 80s, becoming more destructive over time. Let’s call in the experts from all over the world to identify the source of that virus and develop a cure as soon as we can.
“ It doesn’t matter who paid which vendors. What matters is the work product”
Previous posts here at FR said that various people involved in this case (evaluators, etc) “worked for Allan” because he paid the larger percentage of their fees, and, therefore, nothing in their work products (advising against Catherine having custody) could be trusted. I thought that was faulty logic, but ok, let’s say all professionals are unethical and give custody to highest bidder. This psychiatrist was in Catherine’s pocket, so she must’ve been playing the same corrupt game then. Her opinion is clearly biased and meaningless because people always favors the one who puts money in her pocket, right?
Devil’s advocates would be good at logical fallacies. Some of your statements seem to be true until one apply rules of logic and the facts of the case. As you might already know, logical fallacies are sometimes used to mislead people.
You wrote:
“Let’s say all professionals are unethical and give custody to highest bidder … 👈 why?
All professionals aren’t unethical. Only some some professionals are unethical.
“This psychiatrist was in Catherine’s pocket, so she must’ve been playing the same corrupt game then.” … 👈 how do you know the psychiatrist “was in Catherine’s pocket”?
“Her opinion is clearly biased and meaningless because people always favors the one who puts money in her pocket, right?” … 👈 Who decided her opinion was “clearly biased”? Who proved she was “playing the same corrupt game” as the corrupt vendors?
This is a waste of time. We need a federal investigation, not logical fallacies and mind games.
@5:21pm: kindly apply all of your questions to the family court associates who advocated against Catherine getting custody.
And by the way, thank you for proving my point.
And how much do u imagine she was paid ? The ‘ therapists ‘ were paid $600 per hour anrranged by the husband . Do you have Any facts abt Dr B or just nasty innuendo ? No one but you has integrity ? Oh sure . Got it .
You seem to think nobody but Catherine and her cherry-picked cronies have any integrity. You couldn’t be more wrong.
Abrams made overtly sexist and misogynistic social media posts. How does this not disqualify him from being a “neutral” party? He clears views women as inferior. What type of system do we have where an animal like him has credibility in a court of law?
Dear Pilgrim,
Have you heard of Dr. Richard Gardner? He worked in the family court industry for many years.
“ … Richard A. Gardner, M.D., is a prominent forensic expert with an extensive career of evaluating children, especially during custody disputes between parents. He is considered a leading authority in the field and has even been described as the “guru” of child custody evaluations (Quinn, 1991). …”
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/dallam/2.html
Judge Capeci should be off the bench.
Excellent article that shows exactly how the playbook works. The GAL, the custody evaluator and the court appointed therapists isolate children, demonize mother, and the judge endorses it.
Medical professionals are dismissed and avoided. The scam needs to keep the play with psychologists and the gal directs court appointed therapists never to speak with the mother- she is non-human and they will have only their narrative on the record.
Dr. Brandt and Ms. Culley identified exactly what was occurring. McKay stopped seeing Catherine altogether, and rejected reports of medical professionals to deliver the death blow to Catherine.
The judge did the same.
Judge Capeci and McKay killed Catherine and destroyed the lives of three girls.
Well done family court.
How come Catherine didn’t have a problem when she saw Dr Abrams more times than Allan did. And didn’t have a problem with him until after he issued his report and it wasn’t favorable to her
Catherine also had no problem with Dr Mckay until she issued her report again only once it wasn’t favorable to her
Dr Mckay was brought in to do an updated forensic report because the children were reporting a very different visit than Ms Culley. So to reconcile the difference she was brought in. Clearly from the recording made by one of the children the visits aren’t exactly smooth sailing as Ms Culley described.
Btw Ms Culley was paid for by Catherine so using the Catherine logic of he or she who pays the bill gets the better report, Ms Culley had an usual alignment with Catherine and therefore like the psychiatrist her reporting is biased.
Dr. McKay, despite the misinformation, was paid EQUALLY, by both parties and in advance of the release of the report. She had no incentive but to accurately report her findings which are consistent with Catherine’s posting on Facebook which the children complained about, and how they found out about her “suicide” and her use of terror when she doesn’t get her way. Destruction of Allan even if it destroys her girls
Congrats you’ve all been fooled again by the master
Dear laughing at a tragedy at 1:01 pm,
When you typed, “And didn’t have a problem with him until after he issued his report and it wasn’t favorable to her“ did you stop to think that maybe Mr. Abrams deceived Catherine on purpose?
There’s something called, “deceit”. Some people are very good at deceiving others.
This is obviously not Sanctuary for Families posting this. This is a troll. Note the difference in tone between this post and the previous post where Sanctuary was clarifying untruths attributed to them.
Please. U don’t know the truth. U know the bullshit that fits your narrative.
Yeah, that person is proving a point that we have no idea if that was the real sanctuary for families posting. And why would the real one post under the name of the organization? Shouldn’t they use their actual name? People are so gullible.
Daddy don’t go to counseling. They are never called out on their conduct. Often women have the misconception that these psychologist are there to help. They are not. Custody flipper to who ever the gal says. They are very deceptive .
This comment was NOT posted by Sanctuary for Families. The person commenting under the organization’s name is an impersonator.
“A Fast Day for Catherine”
This scourge of cruelly in visciuosly expunging mothers from the lives of their children will end with a
major federal investigation and the arrest of the co-conspirators. Thank you, Frank, for your dedication to seeing the truth come to light. Thank you, Dr. Brandt, for your courage to speak the truth. I thank the precious souls in heaven — women who have committed suicide or have died from lack of medical care while on the run with their children — who are helping us to open up this scourge. I am Jewish and it’s killing me to see the names of Jews at the center of this court case intent on separating a mother from her children. McKay is not a Jewish name but didn’t she hold a high position at the Westchester Jewish Family Services? This cruelty to Catherine, a twice survivor of breast cancer, is abhorrent. It is not consistent with Jewish values. Why are the Kassenoff supporters bringing the Jewish people down into a sewer of lies? Why was this Christian mother sacrificed? Is this what you were taught in your home or community to do to a shikza (a non Jewish woman)? I am going to a begin a fast day to repent for what the Jewish judge, the Jewish psychologist, and the psychologist affiliated with the Jewish agency have done to mangle and destroy the sacred maternal bond. Please join me on my Fast Day for Catherine which I am beginning this evening to last till tomorrow night. Please Catherine rest in peace!
Bless you.
To the Moron, who wrote this – two of the three girls names are wrong!!!! How is anyone supposed to believe anything else in the article when a fact checker can’t even get the girls names right!!
Haha I see the names have been fixed now after I wrote that
Yes, we appreciate the correction!
One who knows. Hey, genius. This isn’t the NYT. Pretty sure Frank doesn’t have lots of staff. Focus on the important parts. Catherine should not have lost custody of her children. Unless of course you don’t, because you are so evil that you refuse to see it.
Forensic evaluators should not be used in custody cases. Everyone knows these psychologists are often hacks who cherry pick information to arrive at their desired result. They can talk to and not talk to who they want, ask the questions they want, ignore questions and answers they don’t want to hear about, and put whatever they please in their reports. There is zero evidence based support that these grossly expensive reports result in better outcomes for children. Who do these reports help? The psychologist of course, who gets a nice fat fee for flexible work hours.
Forensic Andrew Propper- right there in line with them, husband of Family Kind director, Lesley Friedlander. Both shilling for lucrative court referrals for themselves and Family Kind’s roster of ‘professionals’ providing services to litigants ordered to use them – and pay for them- by NY courts. But if you dig deeper, you will find much of the work is self serving and shameless promotion billed as ‘helping families’. Look at their annual ‘gala’ pictures. You’ll see how cozy they all are with the lawyers and even judges who hand them their profitable referrals.
Family Kind needs to be investigated.
“Everyone knows these psychologists are often hacks who cherry pick information to arrive at their desired result.” That’s right, so maybe the family court should just go to Walmart and ask the cashier to evaluate who should get custody. Every psychologist who has, what, 8 years of school is not to be believed. Maybe you should have a hip replacement from your plumber, since MD’s are also all corrupt.
Anon 12:59 PM. Read the Blue Ribbon Commission Report. Also feel free to post any peer reviewed studies that find that forensic reports result in improved circumstances for families. I’m waiting.
This is funny 🤣. Seriously. Insurance doesn’t like to pay for mental health services. The court appointed therapist are guaranteed work. At tremendously grossly inflated prices. They are appointed time and time again. The non parental alienation people are snubbed and over looked by the courts.