Ruby Corado, the founder and former director of Casa Ruby, has pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud for allegedly diverting thousands in COVID-19 relief funds to private offshore bank accounts.
Corado, 54, was arrested and charged in March with fraud and money laundering for diverting $150,000 — which was taken from a larger pool of $1.3 million that Casa Ruby had obtained through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) programs — into bank accounts held in El Salvador under her birth name, according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release.
Prosecutors claimed Corado passed the money through her consulting company, TIGlobal, in an attempt to circumvent the Small Business Administration’s earlier denial of her EIDL application.
Corado was temporarily jailed and placed in solitary confinement for her own protection, until a federal judge decided to release Corado and placed her under house arrest, with GPS monitoring, at the home of a niece in Rockville, Maryland.
On Wednesday, July 17, Corado entered a plea deal in which she agreed to plead guilty to one count of wire fraud and give up all proceeds traceable to her offense, in exchange for the government dropping a much larger six-count complaint in which she was charged with bank fraud, money laundering, monetary transactions in criminally derived proceeds, and failure to file a report of a foreign bank account.
The wire fraud offense is punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
But under federal sentencing guidelines, due to it being Corado’s first offense and the crime not involving violence, Corado could receive a much lighter sentence.
Prosecutors have argued that the sentence would fall between 33 to 41 months in prison, while her defense team estimates that she could serve between 15 and 21 months, reports The Washington Post.
Corado is next scheduled to appear in court on January 10, 2025, for sentencing. It remains to be seen how U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden will ultimately rule, although he did change the terms of Corado’s release pending sentencing from home arrest to a nightly curfew, along with continued GPS monitoring.
After McFadden asked her if she was guilty, Corado replied yes, adding, “I just want the opportunity with my attorneys to show you, judge, what the funds were used for.”
She claimed the diverted money was only about “15 percent” of the aid she got, noting that “85 percent were used for the intended purpose.” In plea papers, she said that the money is otherwise spent or not recoverable.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Madhu Chugh rebutted Corado’s statements, saying that the $150,000 estimate was a “floor” and that prosecutors would argue, at sentencing, that Corado could have potentially enriched herself with additional funds.
Prosecutors had argued in charging documents that Corado sought to “obtain money and other property from government-supported pandemic relief programs on behalf of Casa Ruby and misappropriate those funds for her own personal benefit.”
As a community center focused on providing services and support to transgender individuals, homeless LGBTQ youth, and immigrants, Casa Ruby was held up as a success story, growing from a small drop-in center staffed by mostly volunteers to an organization employing approximately 50 individuals — many of them transgender people of color.
Prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the nonprofit was estimated to have served approximately 6,000 clients per year, connecting them with clothing, housing, other service providers, and support groups.
Signs of trouble began to emerge in late 2021 after an $840,000 grant from the D.C. Department of Human Services was not renewed. Corado — and other Casa Ruby employees, even some who have since criticized her — disputed what their obligations were under the grant agreement, with the city allegedly taking a different interpretation.
As a result, the nonprofit was forced to seek financial support from the community by asking for donations to keep the center’s transitional and low-barrier shelter housing programs operating.
In October 2021, Corado stepped down as executive director. In July 2022, Casa Ruby shut its doors and scuttled all of its emergency shelter and housing programs after several employees alleged they had not been paid.
In addition, several landlords claimed that Casa Ruby had failed to pay rent on properties where the center’s transitional housing program clients were living.
After the accusations of financial mismanagement came to light, Corado sold her home in Prince George’s County and departed the country for El Salvador, where she claimed to be opening up a new Casa Ruby affiliate organization.
The D.C. Attorney General’s office asked a D.C. Superior Court judge to freeze Casa Ruby’s bank accounts to prevent Corado — who still retained control over them, even after her resignation — from withdrawing further funds.
Then-Attorney General Karl Racine filed a lawsuit against Corado later that year, accusing her of diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars in District of Columbia grant money into her personal bank accounts, paying workers less than minimum wage, and failing to compensate workers for the work they’d done.
That lawsuit remains ongoing.
The Wanda Alston Foundation, another nonprofit that works with LGBTQ homeless youth, was appointed as Casa Ruby’s receiver following its closure. Eventually, the foundation recommended that Casa Ruby be dissolved because its financial debts far exceeded its assets, and there appeared to be no way to resolve the disparity.
The foundation subsequently sued Casa Ruby’s board, alleging that the lack of oversight from board members enabled Corado to embezzle more than $800,000, increase her personal salary, and attempt to open an El Salvador affiliate of Casa Ruby without first obtaining the board’s permission.
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