D.C. Attorney General Accuses LGBT Group of Misusing Government Funds

The owner of an LGBT nonprofit organization in Washington D.C. has refuted accusations of misusing public funds after the district’s attorney general froze the organization’s financial accounts. Attorney General Karl Racine brought a restraining order against Casa Ruby, one of the district’s most well-known nonprofits that claim to provide short-term lodging for LGBT adolescents. The injunction will freeze the organization’s bank accounts so that its founder, Ruby Corado, cannot withdraw or transfer money in the name of the business until a superior court judge can appoint a new receiver.

Corado, a biological man who identifies as a woman stepped down from his position as executive director of Casa Ruby in the fall. However, Corado is still the only one who has the authority to grant access to the company’s financial accounts and bank data. 

Court documents show he reportedly utilized funds from grants provided by the government and outside donations for the former executive director’s “personal benefit” while holding this post. As a result, Corado left the group “unable to operate,” and “unable to pay rent on the transitional housing” it provides to LGBT youth. Additionally, the organization was “unable to pay its employees and vendors.” According to the complaint, Corado withdrew more than $60,000 since 2021 to pay for meals and transportation while traveling in El Salvador, as well as to pay off personal credit card debt. The board of directors for Casa Ruby never gave their approval to those withdrawals.

More than $9.6 million in government grants have been given to Casa Ruby over the past five years, but the lawsuit claims that the organization’s executive board “never met” and failed to take any action between 2012 and 2020. 

Racine told the Washington Examiner, “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.” He explained that “Their Executive Director appears to have fled the country, withdrawn at least tens of thousands of dollars of nonprofit funds, and has failed to pay employees and vendors money they are rightfully owed.”

Corado has denied any wrongdoing, and the organization’s former executive director claimed that the district has been targeting them because they criticized Mayor Muriel Bowser and filed a discrimination suit against the D.C. Department of Human Services. Corado stated, “No, I did not take any money. … They engaged in financial strangulation to the point that today, the D.C. government has not paid more than $500,000 to Casa Ruby because they couldn’t deal with a transgender Latina having a platform in the nation’s capital and making a decent living.”

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