Casa Ruby Scandal Calls for Federal Reform

With a guilty plea to wire fraud in a federal courtroom last July, Ruby Corado’s fall from grace reached a new low. Corado was once much celebrated in D.C. as the face of Casa Ruby, a nonprofit that promised safe harbor and social services to transgender-identifying and immigrant Washingtonians. Corado parlayed this role into breathless news coverage, an award from the Human Rights Campaign, and a Georgetown speaking engagement. Hundreds of thousands of vaporized taxpayer dollars later, Corado is the face of a scandal that left staff unpaid, clients stranded, and city officials red-faced.

The Casa Ruby saga is more than just a tale of nonprofit mismanagement. It’s a microcosm of what happens when credulous civil servants and donors collide with lax oversight and a tidal wave of federal cash. And, in a city where the phrase “trust but verify” is more slogan than practice, it’s a case study in why even the most celebrated causes need hard-nosed scrutiny.