Trans Activist Who Led Multi-Million Dollar Nonprofit Pleads Guilty to Stealing Covid-Relief Funds

Transgender activist Ruby Corado, who founded the nonprofit Casa Ruby to provide social services to LGBT people and Hispanic immigrants, pleaded guilty to diverting at least $150,000 in taxpayer-backed Covid-relief funds for personal use. 

Corado, a 54-year-old immigrant from El Salvador who identifies as a “transgender woman,” was charged with bank fraud, wire fraud, laundering of monetary instruments, monetary transactions in criminally derived proceeds, and failure to report a foreign bank account in March, 2024. 

Corado pleaded guilty on Wednesday, July 17 to wire fraud before U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden. Sentencing is scheduled for January 10, 2025. Wire fraud is punishable by up to 30 years in prison. According to plea papers, Corado is not a citizen of the United States, and the guilty plea and conviction make it “very likely” that Corado will face deportation and, at minimum, suffer “adverse immigration consequences.”

Corado stole at least $150,000 by transferring the money to bank accounts in El Salvador that had been hidden from the IRS. After financial irregularities at Casa Ruby became public in 2022, Corado sold a Maryland home and fled to El Salvador. Corado unexpectedly returned to Maryland and was arrested by FBI agents at a Maryland hotel on March 5, 2024, according to a press release by U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Columbia. 

Corado opened Casa Ruby in 2012 as a community center that provided services in Spanish and English, including HIV testing and and assistance for immigration-related issues. Casa Ruby expanded its services and claimed to provide support programs for victims of violence, counseling services, and housing for people age 18-24 experiencing or at risk of homelessness. 

“[Corado] is a self-made, tireless advocate and leader for social justice, and her hard work has helped gain legal protections in Washington, D.C,” reads Casa Ruby’s website. “[Corado] has fought for LGBTQ human rights, transgender liberation, immigration equality, and access to healthcare, and fought against hate crimes/violence and many other disparities and issues facing the communities that [he] represents.”

When Casa Ruby opened in 2012, it had seven part-time staffers and 40 volunteers. Casa Ruby currently claims on its website to employ almost 50 people and provide more than 30,000 services to more than 6,000 people yearly. The organization had over 100 employees in 2021, according to the Washington Post. Casa Ruby ceased operating in 2022 when it failed to pay employees and rent. Three employees had not been paid for six weeks, reported the Washington Post, and residents living in the organization’s housing programs were forced to move. Three landlords have filed lawsuits against Casa Ruby for its failure to pay nearly $1 million in rent. 

The D.C. Department of Human Services decided in 2021 that it would not renew an $839,460 grant to Casa Ruby for a shelter, the Washington Post reported. Corado resigned shortly thereafter. At the time, Corado had been sued twice by a landlord, and the building owner of Casa Ruby’s headquarters told the Washington Blade that the organization owed more than $450,000 in rent. 

“They want to use me as a distraction,” Corado said when announcing the resignation in a Facebook Live video in 2021. “The reality is that I am not the cause of all of this. It’s called transphobia. In their eyes, trans people are only good to be sex workers.”

D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine sought a temporary restraining order against Casa Ruby in 2022 to freeze the nonprofit’s bank accounts and to prevent further withdrawals. 

“Instead of fulfilling its important mission of providing transitional housing and support to LGBTQ+ youth, Casa Ruby diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars in District grants and charitable donations from their intended purpose,” Racine said in a statement. “Their Executive Director [Corado] appears to have fled the country, withdrawn at least tens of thousands of dollars of nonprofit funds, and has failed to pay employees and vendors money they are rightfully owed.”

According to an amended complaint from November, 2022, Casa Ruby received more than $9.6 million in grants from the District of Columbia since 2016. Casa Ruby also received more than $1.3 million from the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, according to court documents. Corado maintained sole control over Casa Ruby’s bank accounts until August, 2022, despite resigning in 2021. 

“Casa Ruby, more than a nonprofit, was a lifeline for many LGBTQ+ youth in D.C., providing essential services like housing and mental health support,” reported the LGBTQ+ publication The Advocate. 

According to Casa Ruby’s tax filings, the organization’s annual operating costs for 2020 exceeded $4.4 million, and over $2 million of those costs were for employee compensation, salaries, and wages. Corado’s salary of roughly $32,000 in 2014 grew to about $260,000 by 2020, and Corado personally authorized bonus checks without approval from the board.

The D.C. attorney general’s office found that, although the nonprofit listed a board of directors on its tax filings, the board “apparently never met, and it generated no records or minutes to document any action” between 2012 and 2020. 

Days before D.C.’s Attorney General filed additional charges, Corado was seen in line at a stadium for a “Bad Bunny” concert.