District of Columbia
DC man charged with killing partner in gay domestic violence case
Charging document says victim, 58, stabbed to death
D.C. police announced they have arrested 54-year-old Ted Anthony Brown on a charge of second-degree murder while armed for allegedly fatally stabbing his domestic partner, Tommy Hudson, 58, inside Brown’s apartment at 517 Harvard St., N.W., on May 26.
A four-page arrest affidavit filed by police and prosecutors in D.C. Superior Court says police arrested Brown two days later on May 28 after an investigation by Metropolitan Police Department homicide detectives identified Brown as a suspect in the case through information provided by witnesses.
The affidavit says Brown, following his arrest, waved his Miranda rights to remain silent and confessed to having stabbed Hudson after the two got into an argument and after Brown claimed his partner punched him in the face.
“Brown reported that he and the decedent have been involved in a romantic relationship for a significant period and that he was very jealous of the decedent’s possible infidelities,” the affidavit states. “Suspect 1 [Brown] reported to detectives that he believed the decedent punching him to the face did not justify Suspect 1 stabbing the decedent, which ultimately killed him,” the affidavit continues.
“Suspect 1 reported that he had stabbed the decedent in the past and threatened to kill him if he learned of subsequent cheating within their relationship,” the affidavit says. “Suspect 1 reported that he was the aggressive and argumentative party in their relationship and that the decedent would never like to argue,” it says.
Court records show that a D.C. Superior Court Judge Renee Raymond ordered Brown held without bond pending a detention hearing scheduled for June 17.
A D.C. police statement says that at about 8:57 a.m. on May 26, police responded to a call for a stabbing on the 500 block of Harvard Street, N.W. The arrest affidavit says that upon their arrival, officers found a man later identified as Hudson unconscious while sitting on the steps leading up to the front door of one of two apartments located in a two-story attached row house at 517 Harvard St., N.W.
The affidavit says an autopsy conducted by a physician with the Office of the D.C. Chief Medical Examiner determined the cause of death was a stab wound to the right shoulder that severed an artery. The manner of death was ruled a homicide.
It says a crime scene investigation found a trail of blood leading from the apartment where defendant Brown had been living to the outside steps where Hudson was found and subsequently taken to Washington Hospital Center, where he was pronounced deceased.
The affidavit states that two witnesses told detectives that they knew Brown as a resident of the neighborhood and encountered Brown on the day of the murder. Both witnesses told detectives that Brown told them he stabbed Hudson during an argument.
“Witness 1 reported that IT asked Ted what had transpired inside his residence on Sunday, May 26, 2024, and Ted stated words to the effect of, ‘My boyfriend assaulted me, look at my head, and I stabbed him in the heart!’” the affidavit states.
The affidavit also states that Brown has a history of prior domestic violence complaints lodged against him and that he had been arrested at least once for a prior domestic violence incident targeting Hudson.
Neither the arrest affidavit nor the D.C. police report states whether Hudson had been living in Brown’s apartment. But the D.C. police report lists Hudson’s address as 1355 New York Ave., N.E. An online search by the Washington Blade of that address shows it is listed as a men’s shelter operated by Catholic Charities.
Todd S. Baldwin, Brown’s court appointed attorney, when contacted by the Blade, said, “Mr. Brown is pursuing all legal options and defenses, and he’s presumed innocent. And I would ask that the public and all news media allow the justice system to work its way to justice.”
Asked if his client might pursue an argument of self-defense after telling police he stabbed his partner Hudson after Hudson allegedly punched him in the face, Baldwin replied, “I think that’s certainly a possibility. But we’re waiting for a full investigation to take place.”
Local LGBTQ rights advocate Vincent Slatt, who serves as chair of the D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commissions’ Rainbow Caucus, which monitors crime targeting the LGBTQ community, said the murder of Tommy Hudson was yet another example of how intimate partner violence is an “alarming problem” in D.C.
“The vast preponderance of it is straight men beating and killing women,” Slatt told the Blade. “But this case demonstrates, yet again, that LGBTQ people also use violence against their partners, too,” he said. “More information on this case will come forward in the days and weeks ahead, but one thing is already clear from the charging documents,” Slatt said.
“This death was not the first domestic violence incident for this couple,” he noted. “It was the escalation of a pattern that went back several years. Obviously, they did not receive the intervention they needed to end the cycle of violence.”
Slatt also noted that the Hudson murder underscores the need for more social services to address the issue of domestic violence. He said D.C. Mayor Muriel Bower’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs includes a Violence Prevention and Response Team that provides services for LGBTQ people who experience domestic violence, but he said that program is underfunded. Slatt called on the mayor’s office and the D.C. Council to add additional funds for that program and other domestic violence response programs in the city’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget.
District of Columbia
D.C.’s annual MLK Peace Walk and Parade set for Jan. 19
LGBTQ participants expected to join mayor’s contingent
Similar to past years, members of the LGBTQ community were expected to participate in D.C.’s 21st annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Peace Walk and Parade scheduled to take place Monday, Jan. 19.
Organizers announced this year’s Peace Walk, which takes place ahead of the parade, was scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. at the site of a Peace Rally set to begin at 9:30 a.m. at the intersection of Firth Sterling Avenue and Sumner Road, S.E., a short distance from Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.
The Peace Walk and the parade, which is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. at the same location, will each travel along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue a little over a half mile to Marion Barry Avenue near the 11th Street Bridge where they will end.
Japer Bowles, director of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, said he and members of his staff would be marching in the parade as part of the mayor’s parade contingent. In past years, LGBTQ community members have also joined the mayor’s parade contingent.
Stuart Anderson, one of the MLK Day parade organizers, said he was not aware of any specific LGBTQ organizations that had signed up as a parade contingent for this year’s parade. LGBTQ group contingents have joined the parade in past years.
Denise Rolark Barnes, one of the lead D.C. MLK Day event organizers, said LGBTQ participants often join parade contingents associated with other organizations.
Barnes said a Health and Wellness Fair was scheduled to take place on the day of the parade along the parade route in a PNC Bank parking lot at 2031 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., S.E.
A statement on the D.C. MLK Day website describes the parade’s history and impact on the community.
“Established to honor the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the parade united residents of Ward 8, the District, and the entire region in the national movement to make Dr. King’s birthday a federal holiday,” the statement says. “Today, the parade not only celebrates its historic roots but also promotes peace and non-violence, spotlights organizations that serve the community, and showcases the talent and pride of school-aged children performing for family, friends, and community members.”
District of Columbia
Ruby Corado sentenced to 33 months in prison
Former Casa Ruby director pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 2024
A federal judge on Jan. 13 sentenced Ruby Corado, the founder and former executive director of the now closed D.C. LGBTQ community services organization Casa Ruby, to 33 months of incarceration for a charge of wire fraud to which she pleaded guilty in July 2024.
U.S. District Court Judge Trevor M. McFadden handed down the sentence that had been requested by prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia after Corado’s sentencing had been postponed six times for various reasons.
The judge also sentenced her to 24 months of supervised release upon her completion of incarceration.
In addition to the sentence of incarceration, McFadden agreed to a request by prosecutors to hold Corado responsible for “restitution” and “forfeiture” in the amount of $956,215 that prosecutors have said she illegally misappropriated from federal loans obtained by Casa Ruby.
The charge to which she pleaded guilty is based on allegations that she diverted at least $180,000 “in taxpayer backed emergency COVID relief funds to private offshore bank accounts,” according to court documents.
Court records show FBI agents arrested Corado on March 5, 2024, at a hotel in Laurel, Md., shortly after she returned to the U.S. from El Salvador, where authorities say she moved in 2022. Prosecutors have said in charging documents that she allegedly fled to El Salvador, where she was born, after “financial irregularities at Casa Ruby became public,” and the LGBTQ organization ceased operating.
Shortly after her arrest, another judge agreed to release Corado into the custody of her niece in Rockville, Md., under a home detention order. But at an Oct. 14, 2025, court hearing at which the sentencing was postponed after Corado’s court appointed attorney withdrew from the case, McFadden ordered Corado to be held in jail until the time of her once again rescheduled sentencing.
Her attorney at the time, Elizabeth Mullin, stated in a court motion that her reason for withdrawing from the case was an “irreconcilable breakdown in the attorney-client relationship.”
Corado’s newly retained attorney, Pleasant Brodnax, filed a 25-page defense Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing on Jan. 6, calling for the judge to sentence Corado only to the time she had already served in detention since October.
Among other things, Brodnax’s defense memorandum disputes the claim by prosecutors that Corado improperly diverted as much as $956,215 from federally backed loans to Casa Ruby, saying the total amount Corado diverted was $200,000. Her memo also states that Corado diverted the funds to a bank account in El Salvador for the purpose of opening a Casa Ruby facility there, not to be used for her personally.
“Ms. Corado has accepted responsibility for transferring a portion of the loan disbursements into another account she operated and ultimately transferring a portion of the loan disbursements to an account in El Salvador,” the memo continues.
“Her purpose in transferring funds to El Salvador was to fund Casa Ruby programs in El Salvador,” it says, adding, “Of course, she acknowledges that the terms of the loan agreement did not permit her to transfer the funds to El Salvador for any purpose.”
In his own 16-page sentencing recommendation memo, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Borchert, the lead prosecutor in the case, said Corado’s action amounted at the least to fraud.
“The defendant and Casa Ruby received no less than $1.2 million in taxpayer backed funds during the COVID-19 global health crisis,” he memo states. “But rather than use those funds to support Casa Ruby’s mission as the defendant promised, the defendant further contributed to its demise by unlawfully transferring no less than $180,000 of these federal emergency relief funds into her own private offshore bank accounts,” it says.
“Then, when media reports suggested the defendant would be prosecuted for squandering Casa Ruby’s government funding, she sold her home and fled the country,” the memo states. “Meanwhile, the people who she had promised to pay with taxpayer-backed funds – her employees, landlord, and vendors – were left behind flat broke.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office and Corado’s attorney didn’t immediately respond to a request from the Washington Blade for comment on the judge’s sentence.
“Ms. Corado accepts full responsibility for her actions in this case,” defense attorney Brodnax says in her sentencing memo. “She acknowledges the false statements made in the loan applications and that she used some of the money outside the United States,” it says.
“However, the money was still utilized for the same purpose and intention as the funds used in the United States, to assist the LGBTQ community,” it states. “Ms. Corado did not use the money to buy lavish goods or fund a lavish lifestyle.”
Brodnax also states in her memo that as a transgender woman, Corado could face abuse and danger in a correctional facility where she may be sent if sentenced to incarceration.
“Ruby Corado committed a crime, she is now paying the price,” said D.C. LGBTQ rights advocate Peter Rosenstein. “While it is sad in many ways, we must remember she hurt the transgender community with what she did, and in many ways they all paid for her crime.”
District of Columbia
Kennedy Center renaming triggers backlash
Artists who cancel shows threatened; calls for funding boycott grow
Efforts to rename the Kennedy Center to add President Trump’s name to the D.C. arts institution continue to spark backlash.
A new petition from Qommittee , a national network of drag artists and allies led by survivors of hate crimes, calls on Kennedy Center donors to suspend funding to the center until “artistic independence is restored, and to redirect support to banned or censored artists.”
“While Trump won’t back down, the donors who contribute nearly $100 million annually to the Kennedy Center can afford to take a stand,” the petition reads. “Money talks. When donors fund censorship, they don’t just harm one institution – they tell marginalized communities their stories don’t deserve to be told.”
The petition can be found here.
Meanwhile, a decision by several prominent musicians and jazz performers to cancel their shows at the recently renamed Trump-Kennedy Center in D.C. planned for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve has drawn the ire of the Center’s president, Richard Grenell.
Grenell, a gay supporter of President Donald Trump who served as U.S. ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term as president, was named Kennedy Center president last year by its board of directors that had been appointed by Trump.
Last month the board voted to change the official name of the center from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump And The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts. The revised name has been installed on the outside wall of the center’s building but is not official because any name change would require congressional action.
According to a report by the New York Times, Grenell informed jazz musician Chuck Redd, who cancelled a 2025 Christmas Eve concert that he has hosted at the Kennedy Center for nearly 20 years in response to the name change, that Grenell planned to arrange for the center to file a lawsuit against him for the cancellation.
“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit arts institution,” the Times quoted Grenell as saying in a letter to Redd.
“This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt,” the Times quoted Grenell’s letter as saying.
A spokesperson for the Trump-Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the Washington Blade asking if the center still planned to file that lawsuit and whether it planned to file suits against some of the other musicians who recently cancelled their performances following the name change.
In a follow-up story published on Dec. 29, the New York Times reported that a prominent jazz ensemble and a New York dance company had canceled performances scheduled to take place on New Year’s Eve at the Kennedy Center.
The Times reported the jazz ensemble called The Cookers did not give a reason for the cancellation in a statement it released, but its drummer, Billy Hart, told the Times the center’s name change “evidently” played a role in the decision to cancel the performance.
Grenell released a statement on Dec. 29 calling these and other performers who cancelled their shows “far left political activists” who he said had been booked by the Kennedy Center’s previous leadership.
“Boycotting the arts to show you support the arts is a form of derangement syndrome,” the Times quoted him as saying in his statement.
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