Local
Ruby Corado describes D.C. civil case as ‘persecution’
Casa Ruby founder claims board approved transfer of $400,000 in funds
(Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers translated this interview from Spanish into English.)
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — Casa Ruby founder Ruby Corado told the Washington Blade on Friday during an interview in the Salvadoran capital the allegations that D.C. officials have made against her amount to “persecution.”
“This is persecution,” Corado said during an interview at a San Salvador coffee shop. “At the end of the day I am interested in people knowing all these things, because I am a human rights activist and what is happening to Ruby Corado should be an alarm for any human rights defender.”
The D.C. Department of Human Services on Sept. 24, 2021, informed Casa Ruby it was not going to renew its annual $850,000 grant that, among other things, funded Casa Ruby’s emergency “low-barrier” shelter for homeless LGBTQ youth and adults. Corado during the interview with her in El Salvador said Casa Ruby remained open and was not in debt, even though she said the D.C. government did not pay the organization for six months.
“The staff was always paid, because the organization’s principal mission is giving work to all of those people that nobody wants to employ,” she said. “The government as of today owes us around a million dollars for services we provided and we have never been reimbursed, no newspaper has said this.”
The Office of the D.C. Attorney General in a civil complaint it filed in D.C. Superior Court on July 29, 2022, alleged Corado violated the city’s Nonprofit Corporations Act in connection with its financial dealings. D.C. Superior Court Judge Danya Dayson later placed Casa Ruby under receivership.
She named the Wanda Alston Foundation, a D.C.-based organization that provides housing services for homeless LGBTQ youth, as the city’s receiver. The Wanda Alston Foundation in a preliminary report it filed on Sept. 13 said Casa Ruby “should be dissolved.”
An amended civil complaint the Office of the D.C. Attorney General filed in D.C. Superior Court on Nov. 28 alleges Corado withdrew more than $400,000 of Casa Ruby funds for unauthorized use in El Salvador.
The amended complaint, among other things, includes three new defendants to what legal observers say is the equivalent of a D.C. government lawsuit against Corado and Casa Ruby. The new defendants are limited liability companies that Corado created and controls. They include a new version of Casa Ruby called Casa Ruby LLC, doing business as Moxie Health; Pneuma Behavioral Health LLC; and Tigloballogistics LLC, doing business as Casa Ruby Pharmacy.
The amended complaint notes Corado claimed the new companies — and especially the pharmacy — were part of Casa Ruby’s mission, but she never received the Casa Ruby board of directors’ approval to create them. The attorney general’s office has said the board rarely met and failed to provide any oversight of Corado’s actions.
According to the amended complaint, Corado transferred large sums of money from Casa Ruby to these companies. And at some point she transferred funds from the new companies to her own personal bank account.
Both the original complaint and the amended complaint allege Corado transferred as much as $500,000 of Casa Ruby’s funds to create what she said was a new Casa Ruby in El Salvador that the board approved. But the earlier and amended complaints allege the board never authorized the El Salvador operation.
The amended complaint says Corado between April 2021 and September 2022 transferred more than $400,000 from two Casa Ruby related accounts “to accounts she held under her birth name in two El Salvador banks.” It says the Casa Ruby board “never authorized any of these transfers.”
Corado told the Blade she feels targeted because she always tells the truth. Corado added people are distracted from the truth because of a system that benefits from “lies and defamation.”
“People know my work and have seen me working and because of this there are many people who continue to support me,” she said.
The Blade in March 2021 interviewed Corado about the opening of Casa Ruby in El Salvador.
“Our work at Casa Ruby is to avoid suffering and [to offer] support through alliances, that is why we aim to share the programs for migrants that work in Washington because we have seen that they work,” she said during an interview from Casa Ruby’s new office in San Salvador, on March 18, 2021. “We will do a little more work here in El Salvador so that the LGBTQ community has greater access to these opportunities.”
Corado said part of this work included the purchase of a restaurant and nightclub in order to create jobs for LGBTQ people. Corado also opened a shelter “with limited resources, not like what had been done in Washington” and offered makeup classes and other workshops that allowed clients to learn skills to support themselves.
Corado said she began these projects with money she obtained through the sale of her home in D.C. and through her own salary. Corado categorically denied allegations that she withdrew more than $400,000 from Casa Ruby’s bank accounts without the board’s approval.
“I have everything documented in writing, where [the board] approved my salary and also where the $400,000 was approved,” said Corado.
Corado said the board always knew about the El Salvador project, which she said was part of her strategy for Casa Ruby to expand its work outside the U.S. to countries that include Guatemala and Nicaragua. Corado also denied the allegation the majority of Casa Ruby employees were paid less than $15 an hour, which is less than the D.C. minimum wage as of July 1, 2021.
The minimum wage on that date rose to $15.20 an hour.
“Does the prosecutor want to spend resources investigating Ruby Corado and throwing away her work — as they have wanted to do for the last eight years — instead of feeding the needy,” said Corado. “Let them do it.”
“The project that I presented was a priority that President Biden had, which was giving money to NGOs to ensure that people don’t continue to migrate,” added Corado. “I didn’t invent anything that wasn’t already on the agenda.”
Corado noted she was among the LGBTQ and intersex activists who met with Biden in 2021.
“I went and I talked about what the barriers were,” she said. “One of them is local government relationships with the community.”
Corado said she has “more information that she cannot reveal,” but stressed she will do it through the court system. Corado told the Blade she was afraid to speak up because she did not want to jeopardize Casa Ruby’s funding.
The next court hearing in the Casa Ruby civil case is scheduled to take place on Jan. 6, and Corado is expected to attend.
‘I never kissed anyone’s ass’
Corado was born in El Salvador.
She said one of the reasons she decided to open Casa Ruby in the country was because she needed to “heal inside” and “take care of myself” from the trauma she said she suffered during the country’s civil war, from her life on the streets of D.C. and from the loss of several people close to Casa Ruby.
She said she had issued reports about hate crimes in D.C. and the Office of the Attorney General did not work with her. Corado said she once told D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine during a meeting that she did not think he was doing enough to help the city’s LGBTQ community.
“I was on this man’s black list from that moment on,” Corado said.
Corado once again described Racine’s allegations and the tweets he made against her as baseless, and she has made her opinion to the judge known.
“I never kissed anyone’s ass. I don’t expect these people now, after 30 years, to come and approve my work,” Corado emphasized.
The office of D.C. Attorney General Racine released a statement to the Blade in response to questions about Corado’s accusations. “We opened an investigation after public reporting in the Washington Post on July 17th suggested Casa Ruby had engaged in serious violations of the District’s nonprofit laws, which our office is responsible for enforcing,” the statement read. “Our complaint, and the remarkable amount of evidence we’ve uncovered in just a short time, speaks for itself.”
Corado also said she continues to receive death threats, and her car was vandalized when she was last in D.C.
“I was staying with a friend and someone came to the apartment wanting to hurt or kill me,” she said. “I don’t know.”
Lou Chibbaro, Jr. contributed to this story.
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats elect new leaders
LGBTQ political group set to celebrate 50th anniversary
Longtime Democratic Party activists Stevie McCarty and Brad Howard won election last week as president and vice president for administration for the Capital Stonewall Democrats, D.C.’s largest local LGBTQ political organization.
In a Feb. 24 announcement, the group said McCarty and Howard, both of whom are elected DC Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners, ran in a special Capital Stonewall Democrats election to fill the two leadership positions that became vacant when the officers they replaced resigned.
Outgoing President Howard Garrett, who McCarty has replaced, told the Washington Blade he resigned after taking on a new position as chair of the city’s Ward 1 Democratic Committee. The Capital Stonewall Democrats announcement didn’t say who Howard replaced as vice president for administration.
The group’s website shows its other officers include Elizabeth Mitchell as Vice President for Legislative and Political Affairs, and Monica Nemeth as Treasurer. The officer position of secretary is vacant, the website shows.
“As we look toward 2026, the stakes for D.C. and for LGBTQ+ communities have never been clearer,” the group’s statement announcing McCarty and Howard’s election says. “Our 50th anniversary celebration on March 20 and the launch of our D.C. LGBTQ+ Voter’s Guide mark the beginning of a major year for endorsements, organizing, and coalition building,” the statement says.
McCarty said among the organization’s major endeavors will be holding virtual endorsement forums where candidates running for D.C. mayor and the Council will appear and seek the group’s endorsement.
Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to Capital Stonewall Democrats. McCarty said the 50th anniversary celebration on March 20, in which D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and members of the D.C. Council are expected to attend, will be held at the PEPCO Gallery meeting center at 702 8th St., N.W.
Virginia
Va. activists preparing campaign in support of repealing marriage amendment
Referendum about ‘dignity and equal protection under the law’
Virginia voters in November will vote on whether to repeal their state’s constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger on Feb. 6 signed House Bill 612 into law. It facilitates a referendum for voters to approve the repeal of the 2006 Marshall-Newman Amendment. Although the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling extended marriage rights to same-sex couples across the country in 2014, codifying marriage equality in Virginia’s constitution would protect it in the state in case the decision is overturned.
Maryland voters in 2012 approved Question 6, which upheld the state’s marriage equality law, by a 52-48 percent margin. Same-sex marriage became legal in Maryland on Jan. 1, 2013.
LGBTQ advocacy groups and organizations that oppose marriage equality mounted political campaigns ahead of the referendum.
Equality Virginia has been involved in advancing LGBTQ rights in Virginia since 1989.
Equality Virginia is working under its 501c3 designation in conjunction with Equality Virginia Advocates, which operates under a 501c4 designation, to plan campaigns in support of repealing the Marshall-Newman Amendment.
The two main campaigns on which Equality Virginia will be focused are education and voter mobilization. Reed Williams, the group’s director of digital engagement and narrative, spoke with the Washington Blade about Equality Virginia’s plans ahead of the referendum.
Williams said an organization for a “statewide public education campaign” is currently underway. Williams told the Blade its goal will be “to ensure voters understand what this amendment does and why updating Virginia’s constitution matters for families across the commonwealth.”
The organization is also working on a “robust media and voter mobilization campaign to identify and turn out voters” to repeal Marshall-Newman Amendment. Equality Virginia plans to work with the community members to guarantee voters are getting clear and accurate information regarding the meaning of this vote and its effect on the Virginia LGBTQ community.
“We believe Virginia voters are ready to bring our constitution in line with both the law and the values of fairness and freedom that define our commonwealth,” said Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman. “This referendum is about ensuring loving, committed couples and their families are treated with dignity and equal protection under the law.”
The Human Rights Campaign has also worked closely with Equality Virginia.
“It’s time to get rid of outdated, unconstitutional language and ensure that same sex couples are protected in Virginia,” HRC President Kelley Robinson told the Blade in a statement.
District of Columbia
D.C. police arrest man for burglary at gay bar Spark Social House
Suspect ID’d from images captured by Spark Social House security cameras
D.C. police on Feb. 18 arrested a 63-year-old man “of no fixed address” for allegedly stealing cash from the registers at the gay bar Spark Social House after unlawfully entering the bar at 2009 14th St., N.W., around 12:04 a.m. after it had closed for business, according to a police incident report.
“Later that day officers canvassing for the suspect located him nearby,” a separate police statement says. “63-year-old Tony Jones of no fixed address was arrested and charged with Burglary II,” the statement says.
The police incident report states that the bar’s owner, Nick Tsusaki, told police investigators that the bar’s security cameras captured the image of a man who has frequently visited the bar and was believed to be homeless.
“Once inside, the defendant was observed via the establishment’s security cameras opening the cash register, removing U.S. currency, and placing the currency into the left front pocket of his jacket,” the report says.
Tsusaki told the Washington Blade that he and Spark’s employees have allowed Jones to enter the bar many times since it opened last year to use the bathroom in a gesture of compassion knowing he was homeless. Tsusaki said he is not aware of Jones ever having purchased anything during his visits.
According to Tsusaki, Spark closed for business at around 10:30 p.m. on the night of the incident at which time an employee did not properly lock the front entrance door. He said no employees or customers were present when the security cameras show Jones entering Spark through the front door around 12:04 a.m.
Tsusaki said the security camera images show Jones had been inside Spark for about three hours on the night of the burglary and show him taking cash out of two cash registers. He took a total of $300, Tsusaki said.
When Tsusaki and Spark employees arrived at the bar later in the day and discovered the cash was missing from the registers they immediately called police, Tsusaki told the Blade. Knowing that Jones often hung out along the 2000 block of 14th Street where Spark is located, Tsusaki said he went outside to look for him and saw him across the street and pointed Jones out to police, who then placed him under arrest.
A police arrest affidavit filed in court states that at the time they arrested him police found the stolen cash inside the pocket of the jacket Jones was wearing. It says after taking him into police custody officers found a powdered substance in a Ziploc bag also in Jones’s possession that tested positive for cocaine, resulting in him being charged with cocaine possession in addition to the burglary charge.
D.C. Superior Court records show a judge ordered Jones held in preventive detention at a Feb. 19 presentment hearing. The judge then scheduled a preliminary hearing for the case on Feb. 20, the outcome of which couldn’t immediately be obtained.
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