District of Columbia
Casa Ruby board members deny responsibility for org’s collapse
Civil complaints filed against officials to be discussed at March 17 hearing
At least five of the eight former members of the Casa Ruby board of directors who are named in a civil complaint charging them with failing to adequately oversee the organization’s finances and practices by its former director Ruby Corado have filed court papers disputing the allegations against them.
Details of their response to a third-party civil complaint filed against them by the Wanda Alston Foundation in its role as the court-appointed receiver of the now-defunct Casa Ruby LGBTQ community services center were expected to surface at a March 17 D.C. Superior Court virtual hearing on the Casa Ruby case.
The Alston Foundation’s complaint was filed on Dec. 23, several months after the Office of the D.C. Attorney General filed its own civil complaint against Casa Ruby and Ruby Corado. The Attorney General’s complaint, among other things, alleges that Corado and the organization violated the city’s Nonprofit Corporations Act in connection with its financial dealings. An amended version of the original complaint charges that Corado withdrew more than $400,000 of Casa Ruby’s funds for unauthorized use in El Salvador, where Corado currently lives.
The Alston Foundation complaint, which also names Corado as a defendant, identifies each of the eight former board members as defendants and “respectfully requests restitution, compensatory damages, punitive damages, receivership fees and expenses, court costs, attorneys fees and expenses, and any other relief the court deems necessary and proper.”
According to the complaint, each of the board members failed to exercise their legally required oversight of Casa Ruby’s operations and of practices by Corado that allegedly resulted in the financial collapse of Casa Ruby, forcing it to close its operations.
Miguel Rivera, one of the former board members who is an attorney, states in his response to the complaint that it “fails and/or may be barred, in whole or in part, because a bona fide fiduciary relationship did not exist between Third-Party Plaintiff [Alston Foundation on behalf of Casa Ruby] and Third-Party Defendant Miguel Rivera.”
Rivera’s response adds that the complaint should be dismissed on a wide range of grounds, including his assertion that he as a board member “has not engaged in (a) willful misconduct; (b) crimes; (c) transactions that resulted in improper personal benefits of money, property, or service; and (d) acts or omissions that are not in good faith and are beyond the scope of authority of the corporation.”
The responses filed by the former board members are not included in the current online D.C. Superior Court case docket for the Casa Ruby case. At the request of the Washington Blade, Douglas Buchanan, the court’s public information officer, provided the Blade with the responses by Rivera and former board members Meredith Zoltick and Carlos Gonzales.
Similar to Rivera’s response, the response filed by Zoltick and Gonzales also disputes the validity of the complaint and asks the judge to dismiss the case against them.
Nick Harrison, the attorney representing the Alston Foundation in its role as Casa Ruby Receiver, said he has learned that another two former Casa Ruby board members have filed some form of a response to the complaint against them.
In a separate motion filed in court on Jan. 21, Harrison states on behalf of the Alston Foundation that it has taken the legally required steps needed to properly serve each of the eight former board members with court papers informing them they have been named as defendants in the complaint. He said he expects Superior Court Judge Danya Dayson, who is presiding over the Casa Ruby case, to rule that the legally required efforts to serve each of the defendants have been met.
Court records show that Corado, who has appeared in previous virtual court hearings through a phone hookup, has yet to retain an attorney to represent her.
Corado has denied engaging in any improper financial actions and has insisted the Casa Ruby board approved her actions, including her decision to open a Casa Ruby operation in El Salvador. In a December interview with the Blade’s El Salvador correspondent, Corado said the allegations that D.C. officials have made against her amount to “persecution.”
At a Jan. 6 court hearing held virtually, Corado reiterated her earlier claims that the D.C. government was responsible for Casa Ruby’s closing in July 2022 by withholding hundreds of thousands of dollars that Corado says the city owed Casa Ruby for services it provided under city grants.
City officials have disputed those claims, saying the funds were withheld or discontinued because Casa Ruby did not provide the required documentation or reports showing that it performed the work associated with the city grants.
The March 17 court hearing is scheduled to begin at 12 p.m. and will be broadcast through the court’s Webex system.
District of Columbia
D.C. nude dance club Archibald’s to feature male strippers beginning Pride weekend
Popular downtown venue to debut new lower floor gay ‘underworld’
Archibald’s Gentlemen’s Club, which has offered adult entertainment in the nation’s capital involving nude female dancers since it first opened in 1969 at 1520 K St., N.W., will offer nude male dancers beginning Saturday night, June 20, according to co-owner Thom Naylor.
The female dancers will continue as usual on the upper two floors of Archibald’s three-story building, according to Naylor, who released a flier promoting the opening of the male dancer venue as an event “for Gay Pride.”
He told the Washington Blade he expects a dozen male dancers to perform beginning at 9 p.m. Saturday when D.C.’s LGBTQ Pride Parade will take place earlier in the day.
Following its opening night for the male dancers, Naylor said he plans to continue offering male nude dancers on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings. The club is closed on Sundays and Mondays.
“I want to have an official Champagne grand opening probably in July,” he said referring to the male dance venue. “This is like a soft opening just to get going and to get everybody acclimated.”
The decision by Archibald’s to offer nude male dance entertainment for an LGBTQ clientele will mark the first time such entertainment will take place in D.C. since March 2020, when the LGBTQ nightclub Ziegfeld’s-Secrets, which featured nude male dancers, was forced to close at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
The owner of the building at 1824 Half St., S.W., discontinued the Ziegfeld’s-Secrets lease a short time later to demolish the building and construct a high-rise residential condominium.
Naylor, who identifies as gay, said he has long believed nude male entertainment should be available in D.C. for a gay clientele as well as anyone else interested in that type of entertainment.
“So, we decided to go with three days in the summer and then come September go into a full swing when we’re open five days a week,” he said, referring to the male dancers.
District of Columbia
LGBTQ seniors honored at D.C. Silver Pride event
City officials, activists credit them with playing lead role in movement
About 250 people turned out on Friday, June 12, for D.C.’s annual Silver Pride celebration, which honors and recognizes LGBTQ seniors and their role in advancing LGBTQ rights.
The event was held in a large conference hall in the building of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, which was among the event’s sponsors
According to local event organizer and longtime LGBTQ rights advocate Rayceen Pendarvis, who served as host of the event, the D.C. Department of Aging and Community Living and the D.C.-based Seabury Resources for Aging, a nonprofit group that provides services and support for seniors, were the two lead organizers of this year’s Silver Pride.
In addition to presentations by several speakers, a DJ played music for dancing and two popular local drag performers — Shi-Queeta Lee and Capri Bloomingdale — performed at the event drawing loud applause.
Among the speakers were Japer Bowles, director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs; Jody Wright, a member of the board of the Capital Pride Alliance, which organizes D.C.’s annual Pride events; Craig McCullough, board chair of Seabury Resources for Aging; Jermaine Dillon, an official with the D.C. Department of Aging and Community Living; and Bianca Ward, an official with the ViiV Healthcare company, which was one of the sponsors of the event.
“It is a joy to be a senior in this community,” Pendarvis told the crowd in opening remarks at the event. “And every part of every Pride movement is built on the backs and the foundations of the elders,” she said.
“We have to have a day when we’re celebrated and we are honored and we are represented in our fullness,” Pendarvis told the Washington Blade. “Because sometimes unfortunately, various Prides forget about our elders. And we have to let them know that we’re here, we’re queer, and we ain’t going anywhere,” Pendarvis said.
“It is my distinct honor and privilege to be here among the elders,” Wright, the Capital Pride board member, told the gathering. “Because what we do at Capital Pride is because of what you’ve done and you continue to do, because we are standing on the shoulders of giants,” he said, in referring to LGBTQ seniors.
District of Columbia
D.C. Council approves expanded grant funding for Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs
Measure introduced by Zachary Parker faces second vote
The D.C. Council on June 9 gave its first round of approval to an amendment to the city’s fiscal year 2027 budget that calls for increasing the number and size of funding grants that the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs provides for local organizations providing services for the LGBTQ community.
The amendment, titled the “LGBTQ Community Grant Amendment Act of 2026,” was introduced by D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), the Council’s only gay member.
The amendment calls for the LGBTQ Affairs office to issue a $980,000 grant in fiscal year 2027 to a private, nonprofit organization in partnership with the office “for the purpose of supporting programs that promote the welfare of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning community.”
The organization would also initiate its own fundraising effort to expand the amount of funds beyond the amount the office would provide, enabling it to provide larger grants to a greater number of local LGBTQ organizations.
Among other things, the amendment says the organization chosen for this new role should have a “proven track record of success in grant making and fundraising” and agree to undergo an annual audit and submit quarterly reports to the office on its use of the funds it receives.
Under its rules for approving legislation, the Council must hold the second vote on the budget bill with the Parker amendment before it is sent to Mayor Muriel Bowser for her signature. It must then go to Congress for a congressional review that does not require approval, but could result in a vote to disapprove the measure, an action Congress usually does not take.
In a June 12 statement, the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition called the D.C. Council’s initial approval of the Parker amendment, “a historic measure that establishes the District’s most sustainable model for a vehicle for investing in LGBTQ communities.”
The statement adds, “The legislation arrives at a critical moment, as LGBTQ-serving organizations face unprecedented uncertainty. Growing demand for services is colliding with shrinking resources, federal attacks on LGBTQ programs, and ongoing threats to local funding streams.”
It says the new program that the Parker amendment would create, if it reaches final approval, “creates a durable mechanism to protect and expand investments in the organizations that thousands of District residents rely upon every day.”
A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said he was looking into the mayor’s position on the Parker amendment but didn’t immediately get back with a response.
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