The ugly custody battle between novelist and director Galt Niederhoffer and her IAC media lawyer ex Jonathan Gordon has taken on an unsettling new layer: Niederhoffer claims Gordon tried to poison her with arsenic and fantasized about murdering her.

Niederhoffer, perhaps most famous for directing the 2010 adaptation of her novel The Romantics (and getting her other book, A Taxonomy of Barnacles, blurbed by Claire Danes), is seeking custody of her and Gordon's two-year-old son.

According to court documents obtained by the New York Post, Niederhoffer claims Gordon cheated on her multiple times and "sought a doctor to deal with his dreams about cutting up her body and dumping the pieces behind their Fort Greene brownstone."

Gordon claims Niederhoffer is suffering from mental illness; her father Victor testified, "While it is painful for us to admit, Galt is mentally ill [and] needs psychiatric care." (Gordon also claims she has been "falsely" accusing him of affairs since 2013. The couple met in 2011.)

The writer and adjunct NYU professor claims Gordon is gaslighting her, and that he's been slowly poisoning her by feeding her food laced with arsenic. According to an affidavit, "high levels of arsenic" were found in Niederhoffer's blood.

Both are facing assault charges: Niederhoffer for allegedly pushing her stepmother's "head to a wall after a hearing"; Gordon for allegedly attempting to choke Niederhoffer in her bed last month.

[Image via AP]

To contact the author of this post, email aleksander@gawker.com