Valerieanne Gagnon
[Address on file]
Canada
August 23, 2026
Cheran C. Ivery
City Attorney
City of Alexandria, Virginia
301 King Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
Re: Renewal and Urgent Escalation of Prior Requests — Withdrawal of Arrest Warrant and Production of APS File W023408-050124
Dear Ms. Ivery,
FOR THE ATTORNEYS OF THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA
I, Valerie Gagnon, am writing as a Canadian citizen to demand that the City of Alexandria withdraw the outstanding arrest warrant against me and produce the full Adult Protective Services file W023408-050124. Over the past two years, I have made three formal, documented attempts to resolve this, all of which have been ignored or effectively refused. Because the warrant was left in place, my mother, Gaetane Gagnon, died alone in Alexandria on July 16, 2025, nineteen days after my unanswered written plea to the former City Attorney, Joanna Cordell. The City of Alexandria now has ninety (90) days to provide a written, substantive response, or I will escalate by filing complaints with the Virginia State Bar, the Virginia FOIA Advisory Council, and the U.S. Department of Justice, and by publicly documenting the full timeline of what was done to my family. The City cannot claim it was not warned.
I write as a Canadian citizen, from Canada, to renew and urgently escalate the unresolved requests first set out in my letter dated June 27, 2025, addressed to your predecessor, then-City Attorney Joanna Cordell. That letter received no response. This letter constitutes my third and final formal demand before I pursue the remedies described below.
I am asking for two things:
First, that the City of Alexandria move to withdraw the outstanding arrest warrant against me and close the associated criminal matter; and
Second, that I be given full access to the Adult Protective Services file bearing case number W023408-050124, previously handled by APS worker Darleen Canaday, which has been withheld from me despite prior requests.
1. BACKGROUND AND PRIOR CORRESPONDENCE
I am the only child of Dr. Pierre Paul Gagnon, who died in December 2023, and Gaetane Gagnon (née Bédard), who died on July 16, 2025. Both of my parents lived at Bulfinch Square in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, and both died there under circumstances that remain, in my view, deeply troubling.
In 2024, while living in Canada, I became the subject of a criminal complaint that resulted in an arrest warrant being issued against me in Alexandria. The precise origins and legal basis of that complaint remain unclear to me, as I have been denied access to the relevant records. What I know is that the warrant has effectively barred me from entering the United States — and by extension, from being present with my dying mother, from attending her death, and from taking any steps to put my parents’ affairs in order.
On June 27, 2025, I wrote directly and personally to then-City Attorney Joanna Cordell. In that letter, I described the circumstances of my situation, including the existence of the warrant and its consequences. I asked that the warrant be lifted so that I could travel to Alexandria to care for my mother, who was gravely ill. I asked for access to the APS file. I received no response — not an acknowledgment, not a refusal, nothing.
Nineteen days after I sent that letter, on July 16, 2025, my mother died. She died without her daughter present. I was not there because the warrant made it impossible for me to be there.
2. DOCUMENTED TIMELINE OF ATTEMPTS TO LIFT THE WARRANT
This is not my first attempt to resolve this matter. I have made three formal, documented efforts:
Attempt 1: I retained Attorney Olivier Morin, a criminal attorney in Quebec, Canada, to provide a legal opinion regarding the warrant. On the basis of Attorney Morin’s opinion — that the warrant was legally void upon the death of the complainant — I retained Patrick N. Anderson & Associates in Alexandria, Virginia, at a cost of US $4,000, to pursue the withdrawal of the warrant through proper legal channels in Virginia. That effort was unsuccessful. The warrant was not withdrawn.
Attempt 2: On June 27, 2025, I sent a personal plea directly to then-City Attorney Joanna Cordell, as described above. That letter was ignored. My mother died nineteen days later.
Attempt 3: This letter, dated August 23, 2026 — more than a year after the death of my mother, and more than two and a half years after the death of my father — constitutes my third and final formal demand. Both of my parents are now dead. I remain barred from the United States. I remain barred from my parents’ records. I am writing to you, Ms. Ivery, because your predecessor did not respond and I have nowhere else to turn within the City’s structure.
3. REQUEST FOR WITHDRAWAL OF ARREST WARRANT AND CLOSURE OF CASE
I do not know the precise details of the criminal process that was initiated against me, because I have been denied access to those records. What I know is that a warrant exists, that it was issued in connection with events at Bulfinch Square, and that it has operated — whether by design or by indifference — as a tool to keep me physically excluded from Alexandria, from my parents, and from any ability to participate in or contest the decisions being made about their lives and estates.
Attorney Morin’s legal opinion, which I have previously referenced and which I am prepared to provide in full, is that a warrant of this kind is legally void upon the death of the complainant. I am not in a position to litigate this point in a Virginia courtroom, because the warrant itself prevents me from entering the United States. I am asking your office to exercise its prosecutorial discretion and move to withdraw the warrant and close the matter.
The two decisive tragedies since my June 2025 letter bear directly on this request:
(a) The death of Dr. Pierre Paul Gagnon (December 2023). My father, the original complainant in the matter that gave rise to the warrant, died in December 2023. Attorney Morin’s position — and I believe the legally correct one — is that the complaint was extinguished by the complainant’s death. A warrant maintained on the basis of a complaint by a person who is dead is, in our submission, a legal nullity. The City of Alexandria has never addressed this point, either in response to our legal efforts or in response to my personal letter to Ms. Cordell.
(b) The death of Gaetane Gagnon (July 16, 2025). My mother died nineteen days after I sent my personal plea to Ms. Cordell asking that the warrant be lifted so I could be with her. She died alone. I was not there. I have no way to describe the weight of that, and I will not try. What I will say is that your office — through inaction on this warrant — bears a direct and documented responsibility for that outcome.
4. REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION OF APS FILE W023408-050124
The APS file bearing case number W023408-050124, handled by APS worker Darleen Canaday, relates directly to my parents and to the circumstances surrounding the events at Bulfinch Square. I have been denied access to this file. I have not been given a clear legal basis for that denial.
As the only surviving child of the individuals who are the subject of that file — and as a person whose legal rights and standing are directly affected by its contents — I am entitled to know what is in it. The file may contain information about decisions made regarding my parents’ welfare, about the identity and role of those who initiated or directed the APS process, and about the circumstances that led to my exclusion from my parents’ lives during their final years.
I formally request that your office:
1. Direct that the complete APS file for case no. W023408-050124 (handled by Darleen Canaday) be produced to me without further delay;
2. Confirm that any prior FOIA denials are withdrawn, or explain in detail the precise legal basis, with citations, for any continued refusal; and
3. Ensure that no portion of the file is destroyed, altered, or withheld in a manner that would compromise its evidentiary value or obscure patterns of decision-making relevant to my case.
5. SYSTEMIC CONTEXT: PATTERNS OF COLLUSION AND CRUELTY IN ALEXANDRIA
My situation cannot be understood in isolation. The handling of my parents’ affairs in Alexandria, including at Bulfinch Square, fits a broader pattern in which vulnerable seniors and their families are drawn into networks of lawyers, financial actors, and local institutions whose combined actions result in the effective breaking, framing, and disinheriting of those who resist. In this pattern, criminal processes, protective services, and civil instruments such as conservatorships are not always used to defend the vulnerable, but sometimes to silence, isolate, and dispossess them and their closest advocates.
From my vantage point as the only child of parents who died in this system’s shadow, the Old Town Bulfinch Square area has not functioned as a center of community — it feels like a tightly woven network of collusion, where the interests of property, status, and insider relationships routinely override the rights of individuals and the obligations of public institutions.
I recognize that these are serious allegations, and I do not make them lightly. I am not asking you to accept them as proven facts in this letter. I am asking you to recognize that, at a minimum, the City of Alexandria has an obligation not to allow its prosecutorial and protective powers to be used as unquestioned extensions of private interests. The combination of a lingering arrest warrant, sealed APS records, and the complete exclusion of the only child from the bedside and the estate table cannot be reconciled with any credible commitment to fairness.
6. SPECIFIC RELIEF SOUGHT AND TIMELINE FOR RESPONSE
This letter is, in every sense, a renewed and urgent request following the unanswered June 27, 2025 correspondence to former City Attorney Cordell. That letter asked, expressly, that the warrant be lifted so that I could care for my dying mother. It was ignored. Exactly one month later, on July 16, 2025, my mother, Gaetane Gagnon, died alone, nineteen (19) days after my unanswered plea. The cost of inaction to date has been immense: my father and mother are dead; my mother died without her daughter present because the warrant was left in place; I remain cut off from the United States and from the possibility of putting my parents’ affairs in order; and the narrative constructed about me by others continues to stand unchallenged in official files I am not allowed to see. Three formal, documented attempts — the first initiated on the strength of Attorney Olivier Morin’s legal opinion and pursued through retained Alexandria counsel at a cost of US $4,000, the second through my personal June 27, 2025 appeal, and the third being this letter — have either been ignored or affirmatively refused.
In light of the above, I respectfully request that your office provide the following, in writing, within thirty (30) days of your receipt of this letter:
1. Written acknowledgment of receipt of this letter, confirming the date on which it was received.
2. A clear decision as to whether the City will move to withdraw the outstanding arrest warrant and close the associated case, together with a concise explanation of the legal basis for that decision.
3. A clear decision as to whether the APS file in case no. W023408-050124 will be produced in full, and if not, a detailed explanation citing the specific statutory provisions relied upon to justify ongoing withholding.
4. Identification of a point of contact in your office with whom I, or counsel acting on my behalf, may correspond to clarify any factual or legal issues that remain in dispute.
These are not abstract requests. They go to the heart of whether the institutions of Alexandria serve the public or a smaller, more insular network of interests. They go to whether my parents’ story, and mine, will remain one more example of people framed, broken, and disinherited in a city that has allowed systemic cruelty to run unchecked, or whether some measure of accountability and truth-telling is still possible.
Please direct your written response and any document production to me at the mailing address and email address listed above. Because I reside in Canada, I ask that electronic copies be provided wherever possible.
I expect your office’s acknowledgment and substantive response within thirty (30) days. If this third and final documented attempt is met with further silence or refusal, I will proceed accordingly: (1) by submitting a formal complaint to the Virginia State Bar against you, Ms. Cheran C. Ivery, for professional misconduct in maintaining and refusing to rectify a legally void warrant; (2) by lodging a complaint with the Virginia FOIA Advisory Council regarding the repeated denial of access to the APS file in case no. W023408-050124; (3) by filing a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice concerning the use of this warrant as a tool of exclusion and cruelty; and (4) by publicly documenting the full timeline of events, including the City Attorney’s pattern of obstruction, so that the record of what was done to my family cannot be buried. Those steps will not be taken lightly, but after three unresolved attempts, including one through paid legal counsel and one unanswered personal plea, they will be necessary.
My primary witness in this matter is Attorney Olivier Morin, criminal attorney in Quebec, Canada, who is available to provide his legal opinion and testimony regarding the invalidity of the warrant upon the death of the complainant. I remain reachable at the contact information listed above: email at valerieanne.gagnon@gmail.com or telephone at 1-450-450-0684. I ask that, before I am forced to pursue formal complaints, your office reckon with the stark moral reality that a mother died alone because this office refused to act — twice. This is my third and final request before those complaints are filed.
Sincerely,
Valerie Gagnon
Leave a comment