Transgender non-profit founder stole $150K pandemic funds before fleeing to El Salvador: prosecutors

The founder of a Washington, D.C., non-profit that served homeless LGBTQ youths – particularly Latin transgender people – has been charged with stealing $150,000 in taxpayer-backed pandemic relief funds – two years after fleeing the U.S. to El Salvador amid swirling questions about the group’s finances. 

Ruby Corado, 53, the founder of Casa Ruby, Inc., was arrested by FBI agents at a hotel in Laurel, Maryland, on Tuesday after unexpectedly returning to the U.S.

Corado sold her home in Prince Georges County two years ago and fled to El Salvador when questions were being raised about financial irregularities at the non-profit. The non-profit had shuttered its transitional housing, failed to pay its employees and faced eviction from multiple properties for failure to pay rent. 

Ruby Corado, the founder of the non-profit Casa Ruby, has been charged with stealing $150,000 in taxpayer-backed pandemic relief funds – two years after fleeing the U.S. to El Salvador. (Linda Davidson / The Washington Post via Getty Images))

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Casa Ruby effectively ceased operations in July 2022. 

Corado appeared in U.S. District Court on Wednesday to face charges of defrauding the Paycheck Protection and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan programs and money laundering. 

Corado allegedly diverted at least $150,000 of $1.3 million in taxpayer-backed emergency relief funds, intended for Casa Ruby, to private bank accounts in El Salvador for personal use, which were hidden from the IRS.

Fabiola Caal Choc, left, speaks to Ruby Corado, the founder of Casa Ruby in 2019. The non-profit cared for Latin transgenders. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

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Prosecutors hit Corado with charges including bank fraud, wire fraud, laundering of monetary instruments, monetary transactions in criminally derived proceeds and failure to file a report of a foreign bank account. Corado is being held pending a detention hearing on Friday.  

Fox News Digital reached out to Corado’s attorney for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Corado, a transgender woman, founded the non-profit in 2012 in a Latino LGBT community center in Columbia Heights. The organization ran a 50-bed emergency housing program across seven locations and a drop-in center, according to the Washington Post. It also has a satellite office in El Salvador. 

By 2019, Casa Ruby had grown to nearly $3.5 million in annual revenue, while in 2020 it had 127 employees and almost $4.2 million in annual revenue, according to the Washington Post. 

Transgender male Charlie Thompson, left, talks with and transgender female Mariah Hill outside Casa Ruby, an outreach center for LGBT people in Washington, D.C., on July 20, 2016. (Linda Davidson / The Washington Post via Getty Images))

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Between 2016 and 2022, Casa Ruby received $9.6 million in grants from city agencies to serve the needs of the District’s Latino and LGBTQ youth communities, while Corado earned $260,000, The Washington Post reports.

Corado came to the U.S. at 16 and worked as a sex worker for several years and at times was homeless. Corado eventually evolved into an LGBT activist with an emphasis on Latin transgender people. 

The Washington Post reports that a court-appointed receiver has also sued the group’s board, alleging that it did not provide oversight. It allegedly enabled Corado to embezzle more than $800,000 and open an office in El Salvador, all without board approval.