Ruby Corado plans to request a new court-appointed attorney after her current lawyer withdrew from her case.
The transgender advocate and founder of the now-defunct LGBTQ nonprofit Casa Ruby is scheduled to be sentenced on federal wire fraud charges on October 15.
A longtime fixture in D.C.’s transgender community, Corado was arrested in March 2024 and accused of diverting $150,000 from $1.3 million in federal COVID-era relief funds awarded to her nonprofit for her personal use.
Prosecutors say Corado funneled the money through her consulting firm, TIGlobal, in an effort to get around the Small Business Administration’s earlier denial of her EIDL loan application.
Prosecutors also claimed Corado fled the country, returning to her native El Salvador under the pretense of launching a similar nonprofit there. Corado recently told WUSA9 reporter Lorenzo Hall that her goal was to help LGBTQ migrants safely flee El Salvador for the United States, where many hoped to seek asylum.
“At the time there was a huge crisis with immigration. We helped them. That was my mission,” Corado told Hall, referring to the services she provided in El Salvador.
Corado has disputed the government’s claim that the diverted funds were used for personal expenses, but she nonetheless pleaded guilty to wire fraud last year. She has remained under house arrest while awaiting sentencing and faces up to 30 years in prison.
Corado stepped down as Casa Ruby’s executive director in 2021, saying she wanted to avoid being a “distraction” to the nonprofit’s work on behalf of LGBTQ Latinos, transgender people, and LGBTQ immigrants.
Corado was later sued by then-Attorney General Karl Racine, who accused her of funneling more than $400,000 in funds designated for the center into her personal bank accounts and violating District employment laws by underpaying staff and withholding wages they had earned.
Racine later sought to freeze Casa Ruby’s financial accounts to prevent Corado from making withdrawals, alleging that she had misused charitable funds and fled the country to avoid accountability — a claim Corado disputed in her interview with Hall.
“There was a famous tweet that said it appears she has left the country. No, I was on and off,” Corado said, referring to a tweet from Racine.
Casa Ruby was eventually placed into receivership to assess whether it could reorganize and resume operations. After reviewing the nonprofit’s finances, the Wanda Alston Foundation, appointed as receiver, concluded that Casa Ruby should be dissolved.
In her interview with WUSA9, Corado apologized to the nonprofit’s former clients. “I am sorry,” she said. “I am sorry that I have not been there to support you the way I always have. That is something that is part of my healing.”
She also expressed regret for mistakes that jeopardized the organization’s work serving vulnerable communities.
“[Am I] remorseful of making a mistake? Absolutely. If I had known that the impact of my work and the decisions that I made would put the work at risk, yes,” Corado told Hall, adding that she intends to step back from being “a spokesperson” for the LGBTQ community.
“I am not going to be a critic,” she said. “I am not going to criticize the system. The system has a lot of power.”
The Metropolitan Police Department is investigating an assault in Logan Circle in which a man allegedly threatened violence against a passerby in what may have been a hate crime.
The incident happened around 10:30 a.m. on September 15 at 14th and R Streets NW. Police say the suspect, identified as 39-year-old Marshall Baxter, jumped in front of the victim -- a neighborhood resident -- and swung his fists, narrowly missing them.
According to an MPD press release, Baxter, who has no fixed address, allegedly shouted a homophobic slur at the victim.
Gay adult film star Justin Heath Smith, better known by his alias Austin Wolf, has been sentenced to 19 years in prison after pleading guilty to enticing a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity.
The sentencing follows what prosecutors described as a "pattern of activity involving prohibited sexual conduct" that included seeking out sexual liaisons with minors and exchanging hundreds of child sexual abuse videos.
Wolf was arrested in 2024 on suspicion of using an anonymous Telegram account to exchange hundreds of videos containing child pornography with another individual whose phone was later seized and searched by the FBI.
Two pharmacists are suing Walgreens and the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy, alleging they were punished for refusing to dispense gender-affirming medications. They are seeking a religious exemption that would allow them to decline filling such prescriptions on moral grounds.
Minnesota law classifies it as unprofessional conduct for a pharmacist to refuse to dispense a valid prescription. Exceptions exist, but only for non-religious reasons, such as doubts about a drug's effectiveness.
State law also permits pharmacists to refuse prescriptions for abortion-inducing drugs. The plaintiffs argue the state should likewise clarify whether pharmacists can decline to dispense gender-affirming medications if doing so conflicts with their belief that gender is binary and fixed at birth, reports Minnesota Lawyer.
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