District of Columbia
Gay D.C. liquor board member says he was unfairly denied reappointment
Mayor’s office mum on allegation that Grandis was falsely accused of ethics violations
Gay longtime D.C. attorney Edward Grandis who has served for the past four years as a member of the city’s Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis (ABC) Board is calling on D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie (I-At-Large) to investigate what he believes was the use of false and defamatory allegations against him to persuade Mayor Muriel Bowser against appointing him to a second four-year term on the ABC Board.
Grandis said he has reached out to McDuffie because he serves as chair of the Council’s Committee on Business and Economic Development, which oversees the ABC Board. Under D.C. law, members of the ABC Board are appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the Council.
In a Nov. 14 letter to McDuffie sent by email, a copy of which he sent to the Washington Blade, Grandis blames Steve Walker, the former director of the Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments, known as MOTA, which advises the mayor on whom to appoint to dozens of city boards and commissions, for failing to provide Grandis an opportunity to respond to allegations that he violated city ethics rules by representing business clients in his private law practice that are regulated by the ABC Board.
Grandis told McDuffie that in addition to failing to allow him to respond to the alleged ethics violations, Walker also failed to inform him and provide an opportunity to respond to another allegation that Grandis lives in Rehoboth Beach, Del., where he owns a home, and no longer lives in D.C., which would make him ineligible to serve on the ABC Board.
According to his letter to McDuffie, Walker informed Grandis that MOTA learned of the allegations from sources who appeared to have an ax to grind against Grandis, but Walker did not disclose this to Grandis until after Grandis repeatedly attempted to reach Walker by phone and email earlier this year to inform him that he would like to serve another term on the ABC Board.
Grandis says he believes he adequately refuted the allegations in subsequent email messages and phone conversations with Walker, but by that time Walker and ABC Board Chairperson Donovan W. Anderson had already advised the mayor or her top aides not to reappoint Grandis and to replace him with another nominee.
He notes that while he spends time in Rehoboth Beach, like countless other D.C. residents, he is a legal District resident and fully meets the city’s residency requirements for an appointed position on the ABC Board.
He also notes that details of his law practice and some of his clients were carefully examined and cleared by the D.C. Board of Ethics and Government Accountability (BEGA) at the time he was first nominated for his ABC Board appointment in 2019. Nothing has changed since that time to rise to the level of an ethics violation, Grandis says.
“To say I was surprised by such defamatory accusations by Mr. Walker, that called into question my decades of private service to my clients as well as my decades of public service to residents of the District, does not reflect the anxiety such falsehoods cause,” Grandis told McDuffie in his Nov. 14 letter. “I don’t think the Mayor, who knows me, would have believed that I was unethical,” his letter continues.
“I bring this to your attention because I want to defend my reputation,” he wrote. “I also want you to know that I do not believe the Mayor or you, if known, would have tolerated these abusive actions by Mr. Walker or Mr. Anderson.”
Grandis told the Blade that he respects Mayor Bowser’s authority to make the final decision on whom to appoint to the ABC Board and other boards and commissions. But he said his concern is that the mayor may have based her decision in his case on false information. He said he has reached out to people with ties to the mayor’s office to discuss his concerns, including the possibility of his being considered for one of as many as four ABC Board positions that remain vacant.
He told McDuffie in his letter that he received a phone call saying the so-called ethical allegations were not pursued. “The reason that I was not considered for another term was because Donovan Anderson, the ABC Board chairperson, requested that I not be renominated to the ABC Board,” he says in his letter. Grandis told the Blade he did not want to publicly speculate why Anderson opposes his reappointment.
City records show that Walker, who was appointed to the position of director of the Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments in 2015, changed jobs in October of this year to become Deputy Chief of Staff at the Office of the Mayor. But Grandis said Walker continued to interact with him after beginning his new job.
In his most recent phone conversation with him, Walker “ended the call stating that I was not to speak to anyone about these accusations or about my desire to be renominated to the ABC Board,” Grandis told McDuffie in his letter. “Being told by Mr. Walker to stay silent only made me more determined to attempt to clear my name with the Mayor,” Grandis says in his letter.
The Blade has sent email messages to Walker, ABC Board Chair Anderson, and Bowser spokesperson Susana Castillo providing details of Grandis’s concerns and allegations about being unfairly dropped from consideration for reappointment to the ABC Board and asking the three to respond as well as to disclose whether they believe Grandis’s allegations have merit. As of the end of the business day of Nov. 21, Walker had not responded.
Anderson replied with a brief message saying only that he had forwarded the Blade’s inquiry to the “Agency” for a formal response. By the Agency, he appeared to be referring to the D.C. Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration (ABCA), which sometimes responds to press inquiries sent to the ABC Board. As of Nov. 21, the Blade had not heard back from an ABCA spokesperson.
Mayoral spokesperson Castillo twice responded to the Blade with short messages saying she was in the process of arranging for a response from the mayor’s office to the Blade’s inquiry, but as of Nov. 21, more than a week after the Blade first contacted her, no response was received.
Also not immediately responding to a request by the Blade for comment on Grandis’s concerns was Council member McDuffie’s press spokesperson, Jose Sousa.
“As I discussed with you, I had looked forward to continuing the work of the Board on alcoholic beverages and cannabis to implement policies that benefit District residents,” Grandis concludes in his letter to McDuffie. “Thank you for the excellent work of your Committee.”
Grandis told the Blade that as an out gay man who is familiar with the D.C. LGBTQ nightlife scene he believes he brings to the ABC Board a perspective and knowledge that has and can continue to help to render fair and informed decisions on LGBTQ-related businesses with liquor licenses.
Also expressing concern about the apparent decision not to reappoint Grandis to the ABC Board is D.C. Council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2). Pinto told the Blade that in addition to Grandis’s role as a gay member of the board, he also has provided representation on the board for Ward 2, where Grandis has lived and operated his law practice for more than 30 years. Pinto, who spoke to the Blade about the Grandis matter last month while attending the 17th Street High Heel Race, said she planned to contact the mayor’s office about the matter.
D.C. Council records show that the mayor’s office, through MOTA, submitted the nomination in October of Silas H. Grant Jr., a former member of McDuffie’s Council staff, to replace Grandis on the ABC Board. Council records show the Council voted to approve Grant’s nomination on or around Nov. 2. Although Grandis’s term on the ABC Board expired on May 3 of this year, under board rules he continued as a board member until his replacement was confirmed.
Grandis told the Blade he believes Grant, who is from Ward 5, is highly qualified to serve on the board and he has no objections to Grant. But Grandis points out that there are now just three members on the ABC Board, including Grant, Chairperson Anderson, who represents Ward 8, and Ward 7 representative James Short Jr. The board’s website says under city law there may be as many as seven ABC Board members, but the board can operate with a quorum of just three members.
With four vacant seats on the board, Grandis says there was no reason for Grant to be named as his replacement rather than to be appointed to one of the vacant seats other than as a sign of animus toward him by Board Chair Anderson and Walker.
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.
District of Columbia
New interim D.C. police chief played lead role in security for WorldPride
Capital Pride says Jeffery Carroll had ‘good working relationship’ with organizers
Jeffery Carroll, who was named by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on Dec. 17 as the city’s Interim Chief of Police, played a lead role in working with local LGBTQ community leaders in addressing public safety issues related to WorldPride 2025, which took place in D.C. last May and June
“We had a good working relationship with him, and he did his job in relation to how best the events would go around safety and security,” said Ryan Bos, executive director of Capital Pride Alliance.
Bos said Carroll has met with Capital Pride officials in past years to address security issues related to the city’s annual Capital Pride parade and festival and has been supportive of those events.
At the time Bowser named him Interim Chief, Carroll had been serving since 2023 as Executive Assistant Chief of Specialized Operations, overseeing the day-to-day operation of four of the department’s bureaus. He first joined the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department in 2002 and advanced to multiple leadership positions across various divisions and bureaus, according to a statement released by the mayor’s office.
“I know Chief Carroll is the right person to build on the momentum of the past two years so that we can continue driving down crime across the city,” Bowser said in a statement released on the day she announced his appointment as Interim Chief.
“He has led through some of our city’s most significant public safety challenges of the past decade, he is familiar with D.C. residents and well respected and trusted by members of the Metropolitan Police Department as well as our federal and regional public safety partners,” Bowser said.
“We have the best police department in the nation, and I am confident that Chief Carroll will meet this moment for the department and the city,” Bowser added.
But Bowser has so far declined to say if she plans to nominate Carroll to become the permanent police chief, which requires the approval of the D.C. City Council. Bowser, who announced she is not running for re-election, will remain in office as mayor until January 2027.
Carroll is replacing outgoing Chief Pamela Smith, who announced she was resigning after two years of service as chief to spend more time with her family. She has been credited with overseeing the department at a time when violent crime and homicides declined to an eight-year low.
She has also expressed support for the LGBTQ community and joined LGBTQ officers in marching in the WorldPride parade last year.
But Smith has also come under criticism by members of Congress, who have accused the department of manipulating crime data allegedly showing lower reported crime numbers than actually occurred. The allegations came from the Republican-controlled U.S. House Oversight Committee and the U.S. Justice Department
Bowser has questioned the accuracy of the allegations and said she has asked the city’s Inspector General to look into the allegations.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the D.C. police Office of Public Affairs did not immediately respond to a question from the Washington Blade about the status of the department’s LGBT Liaison Unit. Sources familiar with the department have said a decline in the number of officers currently working at the department, said to be at a 50-year low, has resulted in a decline in the number of officers assigned to all of the liaison units, including the LGBT unit.
Among other things, the LGBT Liaison Unit has played a role in helping to investigate hate crimes targeting the LGBTQ community. As of early Wednesday an MPD spokesperson did not respond to a question by the Blade asking how many officers are currently assigned to the LGBT Liaison Unit.
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