The founder of a District nonprofit serving homeless LGBTQ youths was charged Wednesday with money laundering and diverting to her personal bank accounts $150,000 of pandemic relief funds meant to support its operations for indigent clients.
An attorney for Corado did not immediately respond to a request for comment. At an initial court appearance, U.S. Magistrate Judge Robin M. Meriweather of D.C. ordered Corado held, pending a detention hearing Friday, prosecutors said.
Court documents allege that Corado received more than $1.3 million over two years from the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. But she allegedly stole at least $150,000 by transferring the money to bank accounts held in El Salvador under her birth name, Vladamir Orlando Artiga Corado, that were hidden from the IRS. Corado sold her home in Prince George’s County and fled to El Salvador.
“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. “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.”
Casa Ruby shut its doors in July 2022 after a Washington Post report raised questions about possible financial mismanagement. The D.C. attorney general’s office asked a D.C. Superior Court judge to freeze Casa Ruby’s bank accounts and prevent Corado from making further withdrawals. Until then, the District alleged, Corado was still drawing funds from Casa Ruby accounts, which she retained control of after she resigned.
In a November 2022 lawsuit, the D.C. attorney general’s office formally accused Corado of diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars and violating District laws by paying workers less than the minimum wage and not paying workers all of the wages they earned. The suit remains pending.
A court-appointed receiver also has sued the group’s board, alleging that it did not provide oversight — allegedly enabling Corado to embezzle more than $800,000, increase her own salary and open an office in El Salvador, all without board approval.
The complaint, filed on behalf of Casa Ruby in late December by the Wanda Alston Foundation, the court-appointed receiver of the nonprofit, came after Casa Ruby shuttered its transitional housing, did not pay its employees and faced eviction from multiple properties for failure to pay rent.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Danya A. Dayson has held remote hearings in the civil case, and Corado has often appeared on video from El Salvador. Corado missed the latest procedural hearing, which was set for Wednesday morning, following her arrest and before her afternoon appearance in federal court.
Between 2016 and 2022, The Post reported that Casa Ruby received $9.6 million in grants from city agencies to serve the needs of the District’s Latino and LGBTQ youth communities. The nonprofit reported more than $4.1 million in grants and other revenue on its most recent federal tax filings, which showed that Corado earned $260,000. But employees told The Post last year that they had gone without pay, and multiple landlords alleged the same.
