The founder of a D.C. organization that provided services to the LGBTQ+ community, who prosecutors say fled to El Salvador after she was accused of fraud, has been arrested after “unexpectedly returning” to the U.S.
Casa Ruby founder Ruby Corado appeared in U.S. District Court Wednesday to face charges of money laundering and defrauding the Paycheck Protection and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan programs.
Corado, 53, is being held pending a detention hearing on Friday.
Federal prosecutors said Corado took at least $150,000 of $1.3 million in emergency relief funds. The money was intended for the organization, but prosecutors said she transferred the funds to bank accounts in El Salvador for her personal use and hid it from the IRS.
She stepped down from her position as executive director of the 50-bed shelter serving the LGBTQ+ community in 2021, after an $850,000 grant from the D.C. Department of Human Services was not renewed.
“I recognize that I am only one person,” Corado said when she stepped down. “But now, they want to use me as a distraction.
She later faced a civil lawsuit from the D.C. attorney general, who accused Corado of funneling more than $400,000 intended for the nonprofit’s work into personal bank accounts.
After financial irregularities in Casa Ruby first came to light, prosecutors said she sold her home in Prince George’s County and fled to El Salvador.
FBI agents arrested her on Tuesday at hotel in Laurel, Maryland, after the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia said she made an “unexpected return” to the U.S.
Casa Ruby effectively shuttered in July 2022. Prosecutors said the organization failed to pay its employees and the rent on its properties.
Casa Ruby, founded in 2012, was once one of the most prominent LGBTQ nonprofits in D.C. and, according to the D.C. attorney general, received more than $9.6 million in grants from District agencies between 2017 and 2022.
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