LGBTQ non-profit founder is finally arrested on fraud and money laundering charges after TWO years on the run after she ‘transferred $150,000 of Covid relief funds into her own bank account’

The founder of a Washington DC nonprofit that helped homeless LGBTQ+ youth has been arrested on fraud and money laundering charges two years after leaving the US.

Ruby Corado, 53, is said to have received more than $1.3 million over two years from the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program.

Instead of using the money as she promised, she stole at least $150,000 by transferring the money to bank accounts in El Salvador under her birth name, hiding the money from tax authorities, court documents allege.

After it was publicly revealed in 2022 that Corado was under investigation, she sold her property in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and left for El Salvador.

Casa Ruby closed its doors in July 2022, when it failed to pay its employees, closed its temporary housing and was evicted from several buildings for non-payment of rent.

The organization used charitable donations from the public and grants from the district government to fund its services.

Before its closure, it employed almost 50 people and provided more than 30,000 social and human services to more than 6,000 people annually.

The DC Attorney General’s office asked a DC Superior Court judge to freeze Corado’s bank accounts and stop her from withdrawing any more money.

Until then, Corado was still taking money from the organization’s accounts, which she maintained control after she resigned, the district alleged.

Corado was arrested by the FBI on Tuesday at a hotel in Laurel, Maryland.

She faces federal charges of bank fraud, wire fraud, monetary transactions involving criminally obtained proceeds, laundering monetary instruments and failure to file a foreign bank account report.

“There is probable cause to believe that CORADO, the former executive director of a nonprofit organization called Casa Ruby, fraudulently obtained funds from government-sponsored loan programs and diverted those funds to her bank account(s) outside the United States. States. an FBI agent swears in an arrest affidavit.

“And CORADO, who is a lawful permanent resident of the United States, never reported her foreign bank account(s) to the Treasury Department, Internal Revenue Service, as required by law.”

In November 2022, the D.C. Attorney General’s office filed a complaint alleging that Corado transferred more than $400,000 from the organization to her personal accounts between April 2021 and September 2021.

She was also accused of violating district laws by paying employees less than minimum wage and failing to pay them full wages for hours worked. The lawsuit is still pending.

Corado denied the allegations when she spoke to News4 from El Salvador, saying she was singled out for speaking out against Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration and a discrimination complaint she filed against the D.C. Department of Human Services.

Bank fraud carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison, while bank transfer fraud carries a maximum penalty of 20 years. Money laundering costs run up to twenty years.