Ruby Corado, the founder of Washington DC trans shelter Casa Ruby, was sentenced on Tuesday to 33 months in prison.

Corado, 56, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud.

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The one-time executive director of the nonprofit was accused of diverting at least $150,000 in taxpayer-backed emergency COVID relief funds to private offshore bank accounts for her personal use, the Department of Justice said.

“Corado received more than $1.3 million from the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program for the non-profit Casa Ruby,” said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. “Instead of using the funds as promised, Corado stole over $950,000, transferred at least $150,000 to bank accounts in El Salvador, and hid it from the IRS.”

In her statement, Pirro, the former Fox News host and longtime Trump stalwart, identified Corado by both her chosen and dead names.

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Corado was arrested by federal agents at a motel in Maryland after she unexpectedly returned to the United States in March 2024. She pleaded guilty to the wire fraud charge that July.

In addition to the 33-month prison term, U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden ordered Corado to serve two years of supervised release and to pay $956,215 in restitution to the Small Business Administration.

After media reports indicated she was under investigation in 2021, Corado sold her home and fled to her native El Salvador, prosecutors said. Casa Ruby effectively ceased operations in July 2022 when it shuttered its transitional housing, failed to pay its employees, and faced eviction from multiple properties for failure to pay rent.

A DC Landlord Tenant Court filing indicated Casa Ruby owed over $1 million in unpaid rent and other fees at its headquarters. Similarly, Union Temple Baptist Church, an organization that leased four townhouses to Casa Ruby, said they were owed $67,867 in unpaid rent.

In a plea agreement, Corado admitted she sent $150,000 that Casa Ruby received in pandemic relief funds to her personal bank accounts in El Salvador. Other charges were dropped in exchange for the guilty plea.

Casa Ruby was the only bilingual and multicultural trans community services organization in D.C.

“We took in vulnerable individuals 24 hours a day when nobody wanted them,” employee Kisha Allure told The Washington Post in 2024.

“We had programs for people to literally build their lives back up. We had trans women who were D.C. natives, trans women of color, and we kept them in a safe space as the mission told us to do. The full respite care center for trans people of color — built by us, ran by us — is now gone in smoke.”

After an initial ruling to release Corado to home detention under the supervision of her niece, she was remanded to jail until her sentencing, the Washington Blade reported.  

In October 2025, Corado’s court-appointed attorney withdrew from the case. Elizabeth Mullin stated in a court motion that the reason was an “irreconcilable breakdown in the attorney-client relationship.”

Corado’s new attorney wrote in a sentencing recommendation that “Ms. Corado accepts full responsibility for her actions in this case. She acknowledges the false statements made in the loan applications and that she used some of the money outside the United States.”

“However,” she claimed, “the money was still utilized for the same purpose and intention as the funds used in the United States, to assist the LGBTQ community. Ms. Corado did not use the money to buy lavish goods or fund a lavish lifestyle.”  

In his own sentencing recommendation memo, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Borcher, lead prosecutor in the case, countered that Corado’s action amounted to at least fraud.

“The defendant and Casa Ruby received no less than $1.2 million in taxpayer backed funds during the COVID-19 global health crisis,” his memo states. “But rather than use those funds to support Casa Ruby’s mission as the defendant promised, the defendant further contributed to its demise by unlawfully transferring no less than $180,000 of these federal emergency relief funds into her own private offshore bank accounts.”

“Then, when media reports suggested the defendant would be prosecuted for squandering Casa Ruby’s government funding, she sold her home and fled the country,” the memo states. “Meanwhile, the people who she had promised to pay with taxpayer-backed funds – her employees, landlord, and vendors – were left behind flat broke.”

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