Connect with us

District of Columbia

Judge approves restraining order freezing Casa Ruby bank accounts

Ruling on request to place LGBTQ group under receivership postponed

Published

on

Casa Ruby’s former executive director, Ruby Corado, retains full control of Casa Ruby’s finances, according to testimony Wednesday. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

A D.C. Superior Court judge on Aug. 3 approved the first of a two-part motion filed on Monday by the Office of the D.C. Attorney General seeking a temporary restraining order to freeze all bank accounts and PayPal accounts of Casa Ruby, the D.C. LGBTQ community services center that shut down its operations last month.

During a 55-minute virtual court hearing, Judge Danya A. Dayson postponed until Aug. 11 a ruling on the second part of the motion, which calls on the court to appoint a receiver on a provisional basis to help stabilize Casa Ruby’s management and governance and to ā€œmaintain and control the funds of Casa Ruby.ā€

Dayson told Assistant D.C. Attorney General Geoffrey A. Comber, who represented the Attorney General’s office at the hearing, that under the city’s receivership statute, an organization must be officially served with notice that a receivership request was pending to provide it an opportunity to respond before a court can approve such a receivership.

The judge said she saw in the motion filed by the AG’s office that the office had attempted unsuccessfully to reach Casa Ruby’s former executive director, Ruby Corado, who the motion alleges retains full control of Casa Ruby’s finances. But Dayson said she wanted to give Corado more time to respond after which the D.C. receivership statute should be able to provide her sufficient grounds to approve the receivership motion. 

Neither an attorney nor another person representing Corado, or Casa Ruby attended the virtual court hearing on Wednesday.

The hearing took place five days after the Office of the D.C. Attorney General filed a separate motion on July 29 alleging that Casa Ruby and Corado had violated the D.C. Nonprofit Corporations Act in connection with its financial dealings over the period of eight or more years.

Among other things, the earlier motion along with the motion approved by Dayson seeking the restraining order, which are the equivalent of a civil lawsuit, allege that the Casa Ruby Board of Directors failed to provide required oversight over Corado’s actions in clear violation of the Nonprofit Corporations Act.

Both Corado and Casa Ruby are named as defendants in the two court filings alleging violations of the Nonprofit Corporations Act.

During Wednesday’s court hearing, Casa Ruby official Holly Goldman testified as a government witness. Goldman said she has served since 2018 as Casa Ruby’s Director of External Affairs.

In response to a series of questions by Judge Dayson, Goldman confirmed, from what she said were her personal recollections, that the allegations made in the Office of the Attorney General’s court filings regarding the issues she had information about were correct.

Among other things, Goldman, who testified under oath, said she knew of just one meeting held by the Casa Ruby Board of Directors in the past four years. Although she was involved in various aspects of Casa Ruby’s management, she said she had never seen copies of minutes or any official decisions made by the Board of Directors, including a decision to approve the opening of a Casa Ruby shelter in El Salvador.

The Attorney General’s motion alleging violations by Casa Ruby and Corado of the Nonprofit Corporations Act state that Corado sometime last year illegally used Casa Ruby Funds to open a Casa Ruby shelter for homeless LGBTQ youth in El Salvador without the required authorization.

ā€œThis preliminary and emergency relief is needed to prevent the ongoing misuse of Casa Ruby’s charitable funds by Corado, who is the only individual authorized to access Casa Ruby’s accounts, despite purporting to resign from the organization in the fall of 2021,ā€ the AG’s motion seeking the freezing of the bank accounts states.

Comber told Dayson at Wednesday’s virtual court hearing that the AG’s office did not object to her decision to postpone a ruling on the request for a receivership order. He said the AG’s office would arrange for the person it will name as a candidate to become the receiver to be present at the Aug. 11 court hearing. Dayson said the hearing would begin at 9:30 a.m.

According to Comber, the AG’s office believesĀ a receiverĀ could stabilize Casa Ruby’s finances and possibly enable it to resumeĀ operating as an organization providingĀ importantĀ services for the LGBTQ community in the D.C. area.Ā 

Advertisement
FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM
SIGN UP FOR E-BLAST

District of Columbia

One trans woman shot, another had legs run over by car in Northeast

November incidents occurred near D.C.-P.G. County border

Published

on

D.C. police say they are investigating a Nov. 1 incident in which a transgender woman was knocked down on a street by a man who backed his car into her and then drove over both of her legs after he was shot in the arm in an unrelated dispute with another person outside an apartment building at 5920 Foote St., N.E.

The woman, Latisa Moorman, said she spent a month at Washington Hospital Center recovering from her injuries before being transferred to a rehabilitation center for continued treatment of her injured legs.

Police are also investigating a second incident in which another transgender woman was shot in her ā€œpelvic regionā€ by an unidentified male suspect causing a nonfatal injury on Nov. 29 inside the same apartment building. The shooting followed an ā€œargument about a sexual act that was performed and payment of money,ā€ according to a D.C. police report.

The victim of the second incident couldn’t immediately be reached to determine if she would like her name to be disclosed.

Moorman, the victim in the first incident, told the Washington Blade a police detective informed her that the man who hit her with his car and drove away has been arrested. She said the detective gave her the name of the arrested man. But the man’s name could not be found in court records and police have not responded to a Blade request to confirm the arrest.

A police report says police were investigating what they listed as separate cases of the shooting that injured the man who drove over Moorman’s legs as well as the incident in which the man who was shot hit Moorman with his car and drove away.

ā€œBoth cases remain under investigation and detectives are actively following up on leads, collecting evidence, and interviewing potential witnesses,ā€ D.C. police spokesperson Paris Lewbel told the Blade in an email. ā€œDue to the ongoing nature of the investigation, we cannot discuss specific investigative steps that have been taken by detectives,ā€ Lewbel said.

The case of the Nov. 29 shooting of the trans woman inside 5920 Foote St., N.E. and the incident in which Moorman was hit by the car outside that same building took place in a location that trans and LGBTQ activists say is known as an area where female trans sex workers as well as trans women who are not engaged in sex work congregate along Eastern Avenue and nearby side streets.

The Foote Street apartment building where the two incidents took place is located at the intersection of Foote Street, 60th Street, and Eastern Avenue.

Less than a mile away one block off the Prince George’s County side of Eastern Avenue transgender woman Ashanti Carmon, 27, was shot to death on March 30, 2019. That case remains unsolved, with no arrest made. About 100 people led by transgender activist Earline Budd held a candlelight vigil one month later in honor of Carmon at the site of where the shooting took place.

Gay D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Anthony Lorenzo Green, whose district is located near the Eastern Avenue area where trans women hang out, expressed concern that D.C. officials are not adequately addressing the issues related to why trans women are engaging in sex work in that area.

ā€œThe angle we come from is the city needs to provide services for Black trans women along this corridor as opposed to constantly trying to arrest them and hoping that will keep them away from Eastern Avenue or away from where they work out of desperation, out of necessity,ā€ Green told the Blade.

ā€œBut that has never worked. And we tell them that over and over,ā€ Green said. ā€œThese ladies have not been given an opportunity to advance in this city. They’ve been forced to the edges of this city,ā€ he said, adding that the D.C. government ā€œshould be bringing social services to that corridor.ā€

Continue Reading

District of Columbia

Hearing postponed for gay D.C. gym owner charged with distributing child porn

Prosecutors call for Everts to be held in jail until trial

Published

on

Michael Everts will likely remain in jail until a Jan. 10 hearing in his case. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

A detention hearing scheduled for Monday, Dec. 4, in which a judge would decide whether gay D.C. gym owner Michael Everts should remain in jail or be released while he awaits a trial on a charge of distribution of child pornography was postponed with no immediate date set to reschedule it.

However, records with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, before which the case is being held, show that Everts’s defense attorney later in the day on Dec. 4 filed a motion in which Everts waived his right to a detention hearing and requested that a preliminary hearing be scheduled on Jan. 10, 2024.

In his motion, defense attorney David Benowitz says the lead prosecutor with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C. does not oppose this request. As of Tuesday morning, the magistrate judge presiding over the case had not ruled on Benowitz’s motion.

But an entry in the court record on  Wednesday, Dec. 5, states that Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey approved the motion and agreed to set the date for the preliminary hearing on Jan. 10 at 4 p.m. The court record shows that Magistrate Judge Robin M. Meriweather will preside over the preliminary hearing, in which prosecutors must present evidence, sometimes through testimony by witnesses, that probable cause or sufficient evidence exists to proceed to a trial. Meriweather will issue a ruling on whether probable cause exists.

Everts has been held without bond since the time of his arrest on Nov. 29 on a single charge of distribution of child pornography following a joint D.C. police-FBI investigation that led to his arrest.

He has owned and operated the FIT Personal Training gym located at 1633 Q St., N.W., near Dupont Circle since its opening in 2002.

Court records show that Benowitz filed a motion on Dec. 3 seeking a one-day postponement of the detention hearing to give him time to review the evidence presented by prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s office. But Benowitz’s second motion waiving Everts’s right to a detention hearing and calling for a preliminary hearing on Jan. 10 appears to have voided his first motion and will result in Everts being held in jail until at least the time of the preliminary hearing in January.  

“Mr. Everts has been advised of his rights under the Speedy Trial Act (“STA”) and agrees to toll the time under the STA until the next hearing in this matter,” Benowitz’s second motion states.Ā 

On Dec. 1, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jocelyn Bond, the lead prosecutor in the case, filed a 20-page Memorandum In Support of Pretrial Detention that describes the government’s evidence against Everts and argues strongly in favor of having Everts held in custody at least until the time of his trial.

ā€œDistribution of Child Pornography is a crime of violence and there is no condition or combination of conditions that will reasonably assure the safety of children in the community – both in the physical world and online – if Mr. Everts is released,ā€ the memorandum states.

The memorandum notes that Everts’s arrest came about after an employee at the gay and bi hookup site Sniffies alerted the FBI that a Sniffies user was exchanging messages with other users expressing an interest in images of underage boys for sexual gratification. A joint FBI and D.C. police investigation traced the messages to Everts, according to an arrest affidavit and the U.S. Attorney’s memo.

The affidavit and memo point out that an undercover D.C. police detective working with the FBI and posing as someone interested in underage boys contacted Everts through the Sniffies site and a social media messaging address of @ethaneffex. The undercover detective, who is identified in charging documents as the ā€œonline covert employeeā€ or ā€œOCE,ā€ engaged in messaging with Everts that prompted Everts to send the OCE video and photo images of child pornography, the arrest affidavit and memo state.

The memo seeking pretrial detention for Everts says Everts went beyond just expressing interest in viewing or sending the OCE child porn videos or photos but also described his interest in interacting with and possibly having sex with underage boys he knew.

ā€œOn multiple occasions he discussed his sexual interest in actual children that he encountered in his life, particularly emphasizing his desire to sexually abuse Minor 1 and noting that he had surreptitiously recorded Minor 1 at the playground in the past,ā€ the memorandum says.

ā€œNot only did he send photos of these children to someone whom he had reason to believe also had a sexual interest in children,ā€ the memo states, ā€œbut he sent multiple voice messages to the OCE reiterating his sexual interest in Minor 1 – as well as in Minor 2 and other unknown minors — and describing the specific sexual acts he wanted to engage in with these minors.ā€

The memo adds, ā€œOnly amplifying his danger to children, Everts then bragged about having previously engaged in sex with a minor and his willingness to sexually abuse a child as young as 10 years old.ā€

Benowitz, Everts’s attorney, didn’t immediately respond to a request by the Washington Blade for comment on the case and whether he or his client dispute any of the allegations against Everts brought by prosecutors.

Continue Reading

District of Columbia

ā€˜Behind-the-scenes’ activist Paul Kuntzler marks 62 years in D.C.

Inspired by Kennedy, Michigan native played key role in early LGBTQ movement

Published

on

Paul Kuntzler is the last surviving member of the original 17 members of the D.C. Mattachine Society. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

In reflecting on his many years of involvement in U.S. politics and the LGBTQ rights movement, Paul Kuntzler points out that Dec. 28 of this year will mark his 62nd year as a resident of Washington, D.C. And he also points out that two days before that, on Dec. 26, he will celebrate his 82nd birthday.

Those who have known Paul Kuntzler over the years say that while his is not a household name in politics and the LGBTQ rights movement, he has played a critical role as an everyday hero and behind-the-scenes organizer for the Democratic Party and the local and national LGBTQ rights movement.

Among other things, Kuntzler served as campaign manager for D.C. gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny’s 1971 role as the first openly gay candidate for the U.S. Congress when Kameny ran for the newly created position of non-voting Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives for D.C.

In his role as campaign manager, Kuntzler is also credited with arranging for more than a dozen volunteers from the then-Gay Activists Alliance and Gay Youth group of New York City to come to D.C. on a bus that the Kameny campaign paid for to help gather the needed 5,000 signatures to get Kameny’s name on the ballot.

ā€œI knew how difficult that was going to be,ā€ Kuntzler said. ā€œAnd I recognized we were not going to do this all on our own,ā€ adding that the gay volunteers from New York, who joined forces with local D.C. volunteers, obtained a total of 7,800 signatures of registered D.C. voters to get Kameny’s name on the ballot.

Although Kameny finished in fourth place in a six-candidate race, his run as the first openly gay candidate for the U.S. Congress drew national publicity, including support from actor Paul Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward, who made a $500 contribution to the Kameny campaign while they were performing at the time at D.C.’s National Theater.

Observers of the LGBTQ rights movement at that time considered Kameny’s candidacy an important development in the effort to advance LGBTQ rights both in D.C. and nationwide. 

ā€œLooking back, that probably was one of the most significant things I did in my life,ā€ Kuntzler said in recalling his role as Kameny’s campaign manager.

He says his involvement in politics began in the summer of 1960 in his hometown of Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., a Detroit suburb, when he co-founded the Grosse Pointe Young Democrats and served as a volunteer on the presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy.

ā€œI met JFK at the Detroit airport and shook his hand,ā€ Kuntzler recalls while he joined a crowd of supporters welcoming Kennedy on his arrival for a campaign tour in Michigan. ā€œIt was Labor Day weekend – Sunday, Sept. 4, 1960,ā€ Kuntzler said in demonstrating an amazing recall of dates and events.

Kuntzler, who traveled to D.C. to attend the Kennedy inauguration on Jan. 20, 1961, said the idealism of the Kennedy administration prompted him to move to D.C. one year later to become involved in politics and the fledgling gay rights movement.

ā€œI met Frank Kameny at Lafayette Chicken Hut on Sunday, Feb. 25, 1962,ā€ Kuntzler says in referring to the then-popular D.C. gay bar. ā€œAnd he was then president of the Mattachine Society of Washington,ā€ Kuntzler noted, which was the first significant gay rights group in D.C. that Kameny co-founded.

ā€œHe invited me to attend the next Mattachine Society meeting,ā€ Kuntzler recalls. ā€œSo, on Tuesday, March 6, 1962, at Earl Aiken’s apartment on Harvard Street, I became the 17th member of the D.C. Mattachine Society.,ā€ Kuntzler continued. ā€œAnd at the age of 20, I was the only minor involved in the gay rights movement consisting of about 150 people in five American cities,ā€ he said. ā€œI’m the only one still living of the original 17.ā€

His membership in the Mattachine Society of D.C. was the start of Kuntzler’s 50-plus years of involvement in the local and national LGBTQ rights movement. He recalls that he helped make history when he joined Kameny and other members of the Mattachine Society in April of 1965 for the nation’s first gay rights protest in front of the White House.

Kuntzler said he brought with him a large poster-size sign he made reading, ā€œ15 Million Homosexuals Protest Federal Treatment.ā€ He said Mattachine Society of D.C. co-founder Jack Nichols asked permission to carry that sign on the picket line in front of the White House. Kuntzler gave him permission to do so.

To this day, Kuntzler says, he has a large United Press International photo of Nichols carrying the sign with Kameny, lesbian activist Lilli Vincenz, and Kuntzler standing beside him with the White House as a backdrop.

In the following three decades or more, Kuntzler served as an organizer and founder of several LGBTQ organizations and projects while pursuing a work career as a manager for several organizations. He served from 1973 to 2007 as assistant executive director for advertising, exhibits and workshop sales for the D.C.-based National Science Teachers Association.

His many behind-the-scenes involvements included serving in 1975 as the first treasurer for the Gay Rights National Lobby, one of the first national LGBTQ rights organizations based in D.C. that later evolved into the Human Rights Campaign in 1980, for which he also served for a short time as treasurer. In 1979, Kuntzler became a co-founder of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, D.C.’s first LGBTQ Democratic organization.

Also in 1979, Kuntzler helped found the National Convention Project, an effort to elect openly gay delegates and secure a ā€œgay rightsā€ plank in the platform at the 1980 Democratic National Convention. The effort resulted in the election of about 100 openly LGBT delegates to the 1980 convention from states across the country, including D.C. and the adoption of an LGBT supportive plank in the Democratic Party’s platform at that time.

Kuntzler said he and the others working on the project, which he called a success, were deeply disappointed when then-Democratic President Jimmy Carter lost the November 1980 presidential election to Republican Ronald Reagan. But he said he was inspired to continue his work on behalf of the Democratic Party and LGBTQ rights issues over the next several decades.

The person most important in his life, Kuntzler said, was his domestic partner Stephen Brent Miller of 42 years who died in July 2004.

ā€œStephen and I met on Friday, March 30, 1962, at Lafayette Chicken Hut,ā€ Kuntzler said. ā€œI was sitting on the side and Stephen was sitting in the middle, and I think he sent me a beer and then came over and sat down and we talked,ā€ Kuntzler recalls. ā€œWe had our first date on the second Sunday in April of 1962.ā€

The two went to brunch before going to see a movie and then took a bus to get to Frank Kameny’s house. It was a housewarming party of the house that Kameny had just secured a lease to rent for his residence and his gay rights endeavors. Miller, a professional stenographer who later started his own court reporting business, Miller Reporting, quickly took on the role of being the loving spouse to a committed activist, people who knew the couple have said.

Kuntzler said his attendance at the Human Right Campaign’s annual Washington dinner last month, which is one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ events, in which President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden spoke, was a further sign of progress for the LGBTQ rights movement as he sees it.

Asked if he has any advice for the LGBTQ community at this time, Kuntzler said, ā€œI think we need to continue to be vigilant … We need to continue to be vigilant.ā€

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Advertisement

Sign Up for Weekly E-Blast

Follow Us @washblade

Advertisement

Popular