D.C.’s Attorney General Karl Racine is making additional allegations against the nonprofit Casa Ruby and its founder Ruby Corado, including that she stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the organization and owes several thousands dollars to employees, landlords, and vendors.

In an amended complaint filed in D.C. Superior Court this week, Racine alleges that between July 2021 and July 2022, employees were paid $15 per hour — 20 cents under the D.C.-wide minimum wage of $15.20 that went info effect on July 1, 2021. Racine’s complaint also alleges that employees did not receive itemized paychecks showing hours worked, an hourly rate, overtime pay, or deductions — making it difficult to determine whether they were paid correctly.

Meanwhile, as employees went underpaid, Corado “was freely supplementing her $260,000 salary with additional funds drawn from Casa Ruby’s bank accounts,” according to the complaint, which amends Racine’s initial lawsuit against Casa Ruby from July. The new complaint also alleges Corado kept money from insurance reimbursements meant for the organization. According to the complaint, Corado created companies to receive discounted prescription drugs through a federal program, and withdrew the reimbursed insurance money from the companies’ accounts.

Emails sent to addresses listed on court orders for Corado were not immediately returned. After months of being unreachable to reporters, Corado denied all allegations this week in a phone call with the Washington Post, according to their report. She also said city officials were targeting her unfairly, the Post reported.

“But they painted me as a person who was not trustworthy … That was the best way to collapse the work of the organization,” Corado said.

Corado is also accused of owing “significant sums of rent,” to D.C. landlords. For example, according to the complaint, one employee who received free housing in an apartment attached to Casa Ruby’s southeast location learned from the landlord that rent on her apartment and the attached Casa Ruby shelter had not been paid in months. Three of Casa Ruby’s landlords have filed lawsuits against the nonprofit, seeking more than $1 million in back rent.

Two days before Racine’s office filed additional charges against Corado, she was spotted in line to see international reggaeton star Bad Bunny at a stadium in El Salvador, reported El Tiempo Latino.

The allegations spelled out in the Nov. 28 amended complaint come on top of a long list of financial mismanagement accusations made against Corado in the past several months, many of which have been documented in investigations by El Tiempo Latino. 

All of the organization’s programs had closed by July, and employees had allegedly not been paid in weeks,a Washington Post report revealed at the time. The organization also had several outstanding bills, according to the report — raising questions about how the nonprofit used grant and donation dollars. Corado, meanwhile, was unreachable.

Weeks after that report, Racine’s office asked a federal court to freeze all of Casa Ruby’s financial accounts, to prevent Corado from withdrawing or transferring money under the nonprofit’s name until a judge appointed a receiver. (Corado announced her resignation as executive director in 2021, but was still the only individual authorized to access Casa Ruby’s accounts as of mid-July.)

According to the application for the restraining order, which was later granted, the nonprofit received more than $9.6 million in local government grants in the past five years as Corado acted without any board of directors oversight. The motion accused Corado of withdrawing more than $60,000 from Casa Ruby accounts for credit card bills and apparent personal expenses in El Salvador, where she is originally from and was purportedly running a Casa Ruby office.

In August, a D.C. Superior Court judge appointed the Wanda Alston Foundation (WAF), a longtime local LGBTQ+ organization, to act as Casa Ruby’s receiver and conduct an objective third party audit of the organization. After contacting landlords, banks, and other nonprofits, WAF’s first audit found that Casa Ruby owed at least $2 million to various creditors, was the subject of least five open claims for breach of contract, and missed rent payments dating back to 2020. In a second audit, the foundation found that Corado withdrew more than $400,000 in cash from the nonprofit’s accounts using ATMs in the U.S. and El Salvador in 2021.

Racine’s amended complaint includes four counts against Casa Ruby for acting against the purposes of a nonprofit and violating D.C. wage laws. The next court date is set for Jan. 6, 2023.

Previously:
Report: Casa Ruby Quietly Closes And Employees Go Unpaid, As The Founder Is MIA
DC Attorney General Moves To Cut Off Casa Ruby Founder From Organization’s Funds
Local LGBTQ+ Nonprofit Casa Ruby Was Financially Mismanaged For Years Before Its Closure
Founder Ruby Corado Allegedly Stole More Than $400,000 From Casa Ruby

This article has been updated to include that Ruby Corado was seen attending a concert in El Salvador as the number of charges against her in the District increased.