On Friday, March 17, a volunteer dog walker was fired from the Charlottesville Albemarle SPCA with an email from a Richmond-based attorney representing the CASPCA board. A cease-and-desist letter from the same attorney, dated the same day, claimed defamation by several other former volunteers and threatened legal action against them. 

“I was shocked because I hadn’t done any of the things that they were talking about,” says the recently fired volunteer Sarah Lloyd of the attorney’s email terminating her duties. Lloyd had previously served as the volunteer manager until she resigned that paid position in October and returned as a volunteer. She says the email accused her of recording people, accessing unauthorized places at the shelter, and harassing staff and volunteers. 

“I haven’t done any of those things,” Lloyd said in an interview on Charlottesville Right Now. “It’s baffling… Obviously there is a contentious situation here that has evolved where a lot of people are upset.”

The controversy erupted in mid-January with a letter signed by 57 anonymous former and current staff and volunteers expressing alarm about an allegedly hostile work environment under executive director Angie Gunter and poor conditions for the animals. Since that time, 103 current and former staff and volunteers have signed their names to the concerns, and the public controversy has heated up. The board announced an independent investigation by McGuire Woods law firm in early February but did not place Gunter on administrative leave, prompting further public criticisms of her leadership and conditions at the shelter by former volunteers and staff.

Some of those comments seem to have inspired the March 17 cease-and-desist letter sent to five members of the CASPCA Concerns Facebook group by attorney J. Buckley Warden with Thompson McMullan law firm. The letter was provided to WINA by a source who is not a representative of CASPCA Concerns.

“I am writing to demand that you immediately cease making any false statement concerning how animals are treated at the CASPCA, and that you delete all social media or online posts, comments, blogs, articles, or statements in which you defame my client,” Warden’s letter reads. It cites several specific examples of alleged defamation including an online claim about the death of a dog that had been diagnosed with cancer and the withdrawal of funding by Virginia National Bank following the January letter.

CASPCA Concerns responded to the cease-and-desist with its own lengthy statement denying that  any of its representatives have committed defamation.

“CASPCA Concerns has made true statements about the treatment of animals at CASPCA,” the statement reads, calling Warden’s definition of defamation “misleading” and noting that the letter doesn’t address the majority of CASPCA Concerns’ complaints, including Gunter’s allegedly hostile treatment of staff and volunteers and the use of crates, offices and bathrooms to house dogs.

“We interpret this oversimplification as a deliberate choice designed to intimidate participants in the CASPCA Concerns campaign,” reads the group’s statement, which also claims that the letter from Warden “is the [CASPCA] board or its legal representatives first direct communication with the CASPCA Concerns campaign.”

The CASPCA Board released its own statement responding to an inquiry from Charlottesville Right Now about the firing-by-attorney and cease-and-desist letter. 

“CASPCA welcomes all volunteers who support our mission and want to advance the good work we are doing,” the board’s statement reads. It notes the mid-February unannounced inspection by the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services found only noncritical violations relating to record-keeping and no violations of animal cruelty or neglect.  

“Any statements suggesting otherwise are untrue, undermine our mission and are negatively impacting our dedicated staff and volunteers,” the statement reads.

The board statement says commenting on specific volunteers would be inappropriate and references the ongoing independent investigation by McGuire Woods. 

“We hope to have the results of that review soon and will take appropriate action based on the findings,” the statement says. 

CASPCA Concerns points out in its statement that the VDACS assessment “does not disprove the statements made by multiple first-hand witnesses” about poor conditions, and further, “does not guarantee that no animals will be housed in inadequate conditions in the future.”

WINA legal analyst Scott Goodman says cease-and-desist letters are often intended to intimidate, and he notes that proving defamation requires evidence that a person knew what they were saying was false or spoke recklessly.

“Somebody can say what they believe to be the truth in good faith, and that is not subject to defamation,” Goodman says.

“We have to hopefully assume good faith on the part of these people who are making these complaints [about CASPCA],” he says. “It’s a shame if people are intimidated into keeping quiet and not bringing things to light that they have really performed a service in doing to make for a better SPCA.”

 Listen to all CASPCA interviews here.