Section 1: Summary of the Letter to City Attorney Cheran C. Ivery (August 23, 2026)
On August 23, 2026, Canadian citizen Valerie Gagnon sent a formal letter to Alexandria City Attorney Cheran C. Ivery, issuing what she describes as her third and final written demand to the City of Alexandria. The letter demands, first, that the City move to withdraw an outstanding arrest warrant issued against her in 2021 and close the associated criminal matter, and second, that the City produce the full Adult Protective Services file, case number W023408-050124, previously handled by APS worker Darleen Canaday and repeatedly withheld from her.
The letter states that the warrant, issued in 2021 in connection with events at Bulfinch Square in Old Town Alexandria when Valerie Gagnon fled to New York, has effectively barred her from entering the United States since 2024. She records that on June 27, 2025, she wrote a personal plea to then-City Attorney Joanna Cordell asking that the warrant be lifted so she could travel to Alexandria to be with her dying mother, Gaetane Gagnon. According to the letter, the City Attorney’s office did not acknowledge the request, did not refuse it, and provided no written or verbal response of any kind.
Nineteen days later, on July 16, 2025, Gaetane Gagnon died in Alexandria. Because of the outstanding warrant and the risk of arrest if she crossed the border, Valerie Gagnon was not present. The letter presents this sequence of silence and non-response by the City Attorney’s office as a central fact: the warrant, left in place without explanation, made it impossible for her to be with her mother when she died.
Gagnon notes that Quebec criminal attorney Olivier Morin has provided a written legal opinion that the warrant was void upon the death of the original complainant, her father, Dr. Pierre Paul Gagnon, who died in December 2023. Despite that opinion, and despite Gagnon’s attempts to proceed through established legal channels, the City of Alexandria has continued to maintain the warrant without, in her account, providing transparent documentation of its present legal basis.
The letter documents that Gagnon retained Patrick N. Anderson & Associates, a criminal defense firm in Alexandria, at a cost of US $4,000 to seek withdrawal of the warrant through Virginia courts and prosecutorial channels. That effort failed: the warrant remains active, and she has received no resolution that would allow her to safely enter the United States. She presents this as evidence that she has exhausted ordinary procedural remedies and has borne substantial financial costs in attempting to comply with the system that continues to exclude her.
The second demand concerns the Adult Protective Services file, case W023408-050124. Gagnon states that she initiated the APS complaint herself to protect her mother in Alexandria, that the file grew to hundreds of pages under APS worker Darleen Canaday, and that the City and its agents have repeatedly refused to provide her with the full record. The letter characterizes the withholding of this file as a barrier to understanding what officials, service providers, and private actors did or failed to do in relation to her mother’s care and safety in Old Town, particularly around Bulfinch Square.
Formally, the letter gives the City 30 days to respond in writing to both demands and 90 days before escalation. If the City fails to provide a substantive written response, Gagnon states that she will file a complaint with the Virginia State Bar against City Attorney Cheran C. Ivery personally; pursue relief and review from the Virginia FOIA Advisory Council regarding the withheld APS file; and submit documentation to the U.S. Department of Justice concerning the City’s handling of the warrant, the APS record, and the effect of these actions on her ability to protect and be present for her mother.
Throughout, the letter situates the warrant and the sealed APS file within a broader pattern of obstruction and impunity around Bulfinch Square. It frames the City Attorney’s silence in the face of a documented family emergency, and the continued refusal to release the APS record, as part of an institutional reluctance to account for decisions that left a daughter exiled and a vulnerable elder isolated. The letter is positioned not as a negotiation but as a final notice before external accountability mechanisms are engaged.
The full text of the letter is publicly available here: Letter to City Attorney Cheran C. Ivery (August 23, 2026).
Section 2: Valerie Gagnon’s History with the Alexandria City Attorney’s Office
The documented history between Valerie Gagnon and the Alexandria City Attorney’s office begins in 2021, when an arrest warrant was issued against her in connection with events at Bulfinch Square in Old Town Alexandria, circumstances that compelled her to flee to New York. From the outset, she has been denied access to the records that would explain the precise legal basis for the warrant. This opacity has defined the entire relationship: she is barred from the country, yet the City has not provided her with a clear, documented account of what criminal theory it is still relying on to justify that bar.
Gagnon’s first documented attempt to resolve the warrant came through legal channels in Quebec. She retained criminal attorney Olivier Morin to analyze the case. Morin concluded that the warrant was legally void once the original complainant, Dr. Pierre Paul Gagnon, died in December 2023. On the strength of that opinion, in October 2024 Gagnon hired the Virginia criminal defense firm Patrick N. Anderson & Associates in Alexandria, paying US $4,000 to have the 2021 warrant addressed directly in the jurisdiction where it was issued. Despite this investment and the involvement of U.S. counsel, the warrant remained in place. No transparent explanation from the City Attorney’s office has been documented to account for that outcome.
Her second attempt to obtain relief bypassed intermediaries. On June 27, 2025, Gagnon sent a personal letter directly to then-City Attorney Joanna Cordell. In that letter, she laid out the existence of the warrant, its practical effect of keeping her out of the United States, and the fact that her mother, Gaetane Gagnon, was gravely ill in Alexandria. She asked, in writing, that the warrant be lifted or otherwise addressed so she could travel to Old Town to care for and be with her mother at the end of her life. The City Attorney’s office did not respond. The record reflects no acknowledgment, no refusal, and no explanation. The silence left the warrant intact and Gagnon blocked from crossing the border.
On July 16, 2025, nineteen days after Gagnon’s unanswered plea, Gaetane Gagnon died. Valerie remained in Canada, still constrained by the unresolved Alexandria warrant. In the chronology of this case, this is the central event: a City Attorney’s office, fully informed of a dying resident and a daughter excluded by a City-driven criminal instrument, did not act or respond. The consequence is undisputed. A mother died in Alexandria; her only child was not allowed to be there.
The Law Firm That Was Paid and Did Nothing
In October 2024, Valerie Gagnon hired The Law Offices of Patrick N. Anderson & Associates — located at 333 N. Fairfax St., Ste. 310, Alexandria, Virginia 22314, phone (703) 519-7100 — and paid them to resolve the outstanding 2021 warrant. The same warrant the City Attorney’s office had refused to address despite written demands. The same warrant that barred her from her dying mother’s side.
A confirmed payment of $2,000.00 was made on October 2, 2024 via VISA (Transaction ID: 118446020). Patrick N. Anderson & Associates were hired and paid in full — $4,000 total. Despite being retained and paid in full, the firm failed to perform the service they were contracted to provide. The 2021 warrant remains active as of August 2026.
Running alongside the warrant is the Adult Protective Services file, case W023408-050124. Valerie Gagnon herself filed the APS complaint, seeking state intervention to protect her mother in Alexandria. Over time, the file expanded to 475 pages, documenting the involvement of APS worker Darleen Canaday and other actors in and around Bulfinch Square. After her mother’s death, Gagnon sought access to this record to understand what had been done, by whom, and on what timetable. She submitted two separate FOIA requests. Both were denied. At one point she was told that she herself was under investigation, a rationale used to deny her the file about her own complaint. To date, the City Attorney’s office has not provided a clear statutory basis, grounded in Virginia law, to justify the continued withholding of the full APS record.
This pattern culminates in the August 23, 2026 letter to City Attorney Cheran C. Ivery. That letter, described in Section 1, is explicitly labeled as Gagnon’s third and final formal demand. It consolidates the history of the 2021 warrant, the legal opinion from Olivier Morin, the failed representation by Patrick N. Anderson & Associates in 2024, the unanswered plea to Joanna Cordell, the death of Gaetane Gagnon, and the stonewalling around the APS file. It then sets hard deadlines: 30 days for a written response, 90 days before escalation to the Virginia State Bar, the Virginia FOIA Advisory Council, and the U.S. Department of Justice.
Across this chronology, a consistent pattern emerges: the City of Alexandria, through its City Attorney’s office, has maintained a 2021 arrest warrant that functions as an effective banishment of Valerie Gagnon from U.S. territory, has refused to disclose the documentation that would explain and justify that warrant, has withheld the APS file she initiated to protect her mother, and has allowed a dying resident to pass away without facilitating her daughter’s presence. The August 23, 2026 letter marks the point at which Gagnon turns from internal channels to external oversight, documenting what she characterizes as a closed system of power in Old Town that shields its own decisions from scrutiny while leaving families like hers framed, broken, and disinherited.
The full August 23, 2026 letter is now part of the public record. By its terms, the City of Alexandria and its City Attorney have been formally put on notice.
Leave a comment