Clinical director who released deranged Macy’s stabber has own history of mental illness, relied on advice from temp psychiatrist

The penny-pinching Manhattan Psychiatric Center administrator who greenlit the release of the deranged Macy’s stabber has a long history of mental illness herself – and made her decision on the recommendation of a “temporary” shrink, The Post has learned.

Caitlin Stork, clinical director of the center on Wards Island, tried to kill herself twice as a teen and battled bipolar disorder, which was treated with lithium and the antipsychotic Seroquel, she told the Charlotte Observer in 2003.

The 43-year-old Ohio native relied on the advice of a temporary shrink, or a “locum tenens” psychiatrist hired on a contract basis, in releasing alleged stabber Kerri Aherne earlier this month, a source who works in NYC-based mental hospitals told The Post.

The temp, with Stork’s blessing, signed the discharge papers on Dec. 10, then headed out on a three-week vacation. Such contract employees are typically used by the state-run facility to fill staffing gaps.

The next day, Aherne — who told The Post in a jailhouse interview that she heard voices telling her to kill — went to Macy’s Herald Square, bought a knife on the eighth floor, then stabbed a woman from California changing her 10-month-old baby girl in a seventh-floor bathroom, authorities said.

Stork and other administrators are incentivized to release patients to cut state costs, the source said.

“There’s a push to get people out everywhere,” the source said. “It’s all musical chairs in order to move people from one bed to another, so there are beds available.

Stork “does the same thing — push, push, push, to get people out.

“You [shouldn’t] get discharged if you’re hearing voices to kill people,” added the insider.

The paranoid, delusional Aherne, 43, also said in the Post interview last week that she is being “tortured by the government.”

The source described Stork as a “weirdo” who pays more mind to a dog named Lily, which she brings to work, than “paying attention to the discharges.” She often has other staffers walk the dog on campus.

“You shouldn’t be bringing a dog to a hospital,” the insider said. “There are allergies, people who have trauma from being bitten.”

Stork graduated from Harvard University in 2004, becoming a top advocate for fellow college students coping with mental illness, and leading the school’s Mental Health Awareness and Advocacy Group. She graduated with a B.A. and went on to earn her medical degree in 2009 at University of Michigan Medical School.

Stork has been Manhattan Psychiatric Center’s chief of psychiatry since 2019, and its clinical director the past three years, according to her LinkedIn profile.

When The Post this week confronted the shrink about Aherne’s release, Stork rolled her eyes and said “Oh God!” before getting into a car outside her swanky Upper East Side home and driving off.

A man who had helped Stork unpack items from the sedan, shouted at the reporter and photographer, “Get the f–k out! F–king leave!”

Justin Mason, a spokesman for the state Office of Mental Health – which oversees Manhattan Psychiatric Center – said all clinical staff are “highly trained and rigorously vetted, including our contracted psychiatrists.

The agency also “steadfastly stands” by Stork’s “reputation as both a physician and the clinical director at the Manhattan Psychiatric Center and fully support the decision-making abilities of her and our staff at this and all OMH facilities,” Mason added.

“While we cannot disclose confidential patient information, all patients must undergo rigorous protocols and meet all criteria before being discharged from an inpatient program, including an assessment of their current level of risk to themselves or the community, violence risk screening, a detailed review of their clinical records, a clinical interview, and a mental health status evaluation,” he said.

The Macy’s victim, 38, was holiday-shopping at the famed department store with her husband and children when she was repeatedly hacked in the back, shoulder, and arm.

Aherne insisted to The Post during a sitdown on Riker Islands that “voices” in her head ordered her to “kill.”

She also said she had been in Manhattan Psychiatric Center for a year before the incident, and had just been released into transitional housing on Ward’s Island because she’s homeless.