Woman accused of posing as NYC high school student claimed she spent three years in psych ward

The 28-year-old woman who allegedly faked being a teenager to enroll in an NYC school claimed she fled an abusive marriage and struggled with an eating disorder that landed her in a psych ward.

Kacy Claassen told her hometown news outlet in Hays, Kansas, about three hours northwest of Wichita, that she was unemployed and homeless and using a nonprofit’s transitional housing program to rebuild her life.

“It was definitely a humbling experience,” a then-25-year-old Claassen told the Hays Post in March 2023, claiming she had briefly lost custody of her then 2-year-old daughter because of her financial issues.

“I don’t regret marrying my husband, I do wish I would have seen signs sooner before I married. But every piece of life is a learning experience, I’ve found.  I have no hard feelings toward him at all. What he does with his life is his life. What he did to me was his choice,” she said.

Kansas court records show Claassen filed for divorce from Kenneth D. Ault in August 2023. Ault could not be reached for comment.

Public records indicate there’s only one Kacy Claassen in the country who is the same age as the woman accused of lying to pose as a student at Westchester Square Academy in the Bronx.

Years earlier, Claassen claimed to have had significant struggles with mental health issues, including five suicide attempts, depression, and grief.

A friend’s suicide allegedly drove the woman to contemplate her own death, she wrote in a 2018 post she wrote on Mental Health Educator AnneMoss Rogers “The Emotionally Naked Blog.”

“I am sad to say this but, shortly after she died, I wanted to take my own life… But then I remembered I had tried five times previous and did not complete them,” she wrote. “I thank God every day that I didn’t die.”

Claassen also claimed she suffered from an eating disorder and spent three years in a psych ward as a result. The Post could not confirm the claim.

“I was anorexic… My parents wont even let me get a job. They wont even let me move out on my own. When they found out that I was anorexic, they admitted to a psych hospital in Wisconsin. I stayed there for 3 years,” she alleged.

“My parents do not care about me,” she whined on in the piece.

“My parents are going to kick me out and that means that im going to be homeless…. I don’t want to be homeless and pregnant. I want (or rather wish) that there is someone or some family or person who would love me and care for me and help me,” she wrote.

Claassen alleged said her name was Shamara Rashad and used a phony ID for two weeks while she attended the Bronx school, said authorities, who charged her with criminal impersonation and trespassing. Claassen pleaded not guilty and was released.

Rogers, who last communicated with Claassen in 2018, said she feared that the young woman had been human trafficked and may have been sent to the high school to recruit others.

“It sounds a little like human trafficking; they get people to recruit people into labor or sex, this sounds like a pattern that I’ve heard of,” Rogers said.

“She told me she was legally blind, if she was disabled in some way that could make her vulnerable,” said Rogers, who didn’t think Claassen was lying about her mental health issues but described her as “a little off.”

“Poor thing, I remember her as somebody who struggled,” she said.

Claassen’s parents did not respond to The Post’s requests for comment. Claassen could not be reached and her lawyer did not respond to The Post’s multiple requests for comment.