The founder of a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that helps homeless LGBTQ+ youth was charged with stealing $150,000 in taxpayer-funded pandemic relief funds and fleeing to El Salvador.
The founder, Ruby Corado, 53, of Casa Ruby, Inc., was arrested by FBI agents at a hotel in Laurel, Maryland last week. According to Fox News, Corado, who is a “transgender women,” sold his home two years ago and moved to South America when authorities began questioning financial irregularities related to his nonprofit. Reportedly, the organization had closed down it’s transitional housing program, failed to pay its employees, and faced eviction for not paying rent (via Fox News):
Corado appeared in U.S. District Court on Wednesday to face charges of defrauding the Paycheck Protection and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan programs and money laundering.
Corado allegedly diverted at least $150,000 of $1.3 million in taxpayer-backed emergency relief funds, intended for Casa Ruby, to private bank accounts in El Salvador for personal use, which were hidden from the IRS.
Prosecutors hit Corado with charges including bank fraud, wire fraud, laundering of monetary instruments, monetary transactions in criminally derived proceeds and failure to file a report of a foreign bank account.
Corado founded the organization in 2012 to help the Latino LGBTQ+ community in the Washington, D.C. area. The organization ran a 50-bed emergency housing program and had a second office in El Salvador. Reportedly, the organization grew to almost $4.2 million in annual revenue and had 127 employees in 2020.
“There is probable cause to believe that CORADO, former Executive Director of a non-profit organization named Casa Ruby, fraudulently obtained funds from government-supported loan programs and diverted those funds to her bank account(s) located outside of the United States,” an FBI agent swore in an arrest affidavit dated Friday, according to The Washington Post. “And CORADO, who is a lawful permanent resident of the United States, has never reported her foreign bank account(s) to the Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, as required by law.”
Corado was arrested when he returned home to Maryland unexpectedly.
Instances of COVID-19 relief fraud have arisen in recent years. In October, Townhall covered how several Florida deputies were charged with defrauding federal loan programs intended to help businesses struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic.