District of Columbia
D.C. judge orders Casa Ruby placed under temporary receivership
Wanda Alston Foundation, Safe Haven being considered to take over
A D.C. Superior Court judge on Thursday, Aug. 11, approved a request by the Office of the D.C. Attorney General to place D.C.’s LGBTQ community services center Casa Ruby under temporary receivership to stabilize its finances and determine whether it can resume operating after it shut down its programs last month.
Among those who spoke at the virtual hearing was Casa Ruby founder and former executive director Ruby Corado, who said she did not oppose a limited receivership order. Corado spoke through an audio connection rather than appearing on video as did the judge and representatives of the Attorney General’s Office.
Also appearing on video for the hearing were representatives of two LGBTQ organizations that the AG’s office has named as candidates to become the Casa Ruby receiver – the D.C.-based Wanda Alston Foundation and the Baltimore-based Safe Haven, which has announced plans to open a facility in D.C.
In response to a request by Adam Gitlin, chief of the AG office’s Public Integrity Section, Judge Danya A. Dayson agreed to give the AG’s office one more day to decide which of the two groups would be named as the Casa Ruby receiver. After listening to testimony by June Crenshaw, the Alston Foundation executive director, and Iya Dammons, Safe Haven’s founder and executive director, Dayson said either of the two groups would be acceptable to her as the receiver.
The judge directed the AG’s office to submit a proposed order naming the receiver by the end of the business day on Friday, Aug. 12.
Dayson’s ruling approving a receivership for Casa Ruby came eight days after she approved a separate request by the D.C. AG’s office calling for a temporary restraining order to freeze all bank accounts and PayPal accounts held by Casa Ruby.
The call for both the restraining order and the receivership were introduced in court by the AG’s office on Aug. 1 in an emergency motion asserting that both Casa Ruby and Corado had violated the city’s Nonprofit Corporations Act in connection with their financial dealings.
“Casa Ruby’s operations suggest clear patterns of gross mismanagement and poor oversight of its programs and finances,” D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine said in a statement at the time the motion was filed in court. “Instead of fulfilling its important mission of providing transitional housing and support to LGBTQ+ youth, Casa Ruby diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars of District grants and charitable donations from their intended purpose,” Racine said.
He was referring to allegations in the AG office’s civil court filing that Corado used funds from the D.C. Casa Ruby to open a Casa Ruby LGBTQ shelter in El Salvador without any documented authorization from the Casa Ruby board of directors, which the court filings say rarely met and failed to provide oversight over Corado or Casa Ruby.
During the Aug. 11 virtual court hearing, Corado disputed the allegations, saying among other things, that claims that she was not in communication with the Casa Ruby board was a “misconception.”
Corado did not say in her remarks at the virtual court hearing where she is currently residing. Members of the Casa Ruby staff have said Corado had been in Salvador for most of the time this year and in recent weeks the staff was unable to reach her to discuss Casa Ruby related business. Staff members also reported that they had not been paid for over a month and a financial crisis prevented them from continuing any of Casa Ruby’s remaining programs.
In her comments at the Aug. 11 hearing, Corado said the funding crisis was caused by D.C. government agencies that she said failed to reimburse Casa Ruby close to $150,000 in grant funds that she said the city was committed to pay for services that Casa Ruby had already performed.
But email correspondence between officials with the D.C. Department of Human Services, which has provided most of the Casa Ruby grant funding, and Casa Ruby officials other than Corado, indicates the funding was withheld because Casa Ruby failed to comply with various grant requirements, including not having a functioning board of directors. One or more of the employees released the correspondence to the media.
“I believe that when the facts, as someone stated earlier, stop being allegations and actually become facts that you, Your Honor, will have an opportunity to understand the ramification of the allegations,” Corado said during the hearing. “There are people, including myself, who have received death threats over things that are not true,” she told the judge.
Gitlin of the AG’s office, while not specifically responding to Corado’s allegations, said his office has met the legal requirement needed to have Casa Ruby placed under receivership.
“In short, we do have reason to believe that Casa Ruby currently continues to be out of compliance with the Nonprofit Corporations Act, continues to be unable to meet its obligations, and its assets are in serious question,” he told the judge. “And so, we believe the requirements for the receivership statute have been met.”
He said the two groups under consideration to become the receiver are “both nonprofits in good standing with experience doing many of the services that Casa Ruby performed.” He added, “Both have pledged that even if they are not appointed receiver, they are happy to help because they care about the community that needs to be served.”
He concluded by saying the AG’s office would like whichever group is chosen as the receiver to “first assess the assets and liabilities that are outstanding for Casa Ruby, figure out whether a board can be reconstituted, and assess otherwise whether there is a path forward for the organizations.” Gitlin said the other option that the receiver should consider is whether its recommendation should be for “an orderly wind down in the way a nonprofit normally would” to end its operations.
Judge Dayson ordered that whichever group is chosen to be the receiver, which she was to approve the following day on Aug. 12, will be required to submit a report to the court on Sept. 13, 2022, on the status of its work. She scheduled a status hearing on the case for Sept. 29 at which time she directed Corado to arrange to have an attorney representing her.
District of Columbia
U.S. Attorney’s Office drops hate crime charge in anti-gay assault
Case remains under investigation and ‘further charges’ could come
D.C. police announced on Feb. 9 that they had arrested two days earlier on Feb. 7 a Germantown, Md., man on a charge of simple assault with a hate crime designation after the man allegedly assaulted a gay man at 14th and Q Streets, N.W., while using “homophobic slurs.”
But D.C. Superior Court records show that prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., which prosecutes D.C. violent crime cases, charged the arrested man only with simple assault without a hate crime designation.
In response to a request by the Washington Blade for the reason why the hate crime designation was dropped, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office provided this response: “We continue to investigate this matter and make no mistake: should the evidence call for further charges, we will not hesitate to charge them.”
In a statement announcing the arrest in this case, D.C. police stated, “On Saturday, February 7, 2026, at approximately 7:45 p.m. the victim and suspect were in the 1500 block of 14th Street, Northwest. The suspect requested a ‘high five’ from the victim. The victim declined and continued walking,” the statement says.
“The suspect assaulted the victim and used homophobic slurs,” the police statement continues. “The suspect was apprehended by responding officers.”
It adds that 26-year-old Dean Edmundson of Germantown, Md. “was arrested and charged with Simple Assault (Hate/Bias).” The statement also adds, “A designation as a hate crime by MPD does not mean that prosecutors will prosecute it as a hate crime.”
Under D.C.’s Bias Related Crime Act of 1989, penalties for crimes motivated by prejudice against individuals based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and homelessness can be enhanced by a court upon conviction by one and a half times greater than the penalty of the underlying crime.
Prosecutors in the past both in D.C. and other states have said they sometimes decide not to include a hate crime designation in assault cases if they don’t think the evidence is sufficient to obtain a conviction by a jury. In some instances, prosecutors have said they were concerned that a skeptical jury might decide to find a defendant not guilty of the underlying assault charge if they did not believe a motive of hate was involved.
A more detailed arrest affidavit filed by D.C. police in Superior Court appears to support the charge of a hate crime designation.
“The victim stated that they refused to High-Five Defendant Edmondson, which, upon that happening, Defendant Edmondson started walking behind both the victim and witness, calling the victim, “bald, ugly, and gay,” the arrest affidavit states.
“The victim stated that upon being called that, Defendant Edmundson pushed the victim with both hands, shoving them, causing the victim to feel the force of the push,” the affidavit continues. “The victim stated that they felt offended and that they were also gay,” it says.
District of Columbia
Capital Pride wins anti-stalking order against local activist
Darren Pasha claims action is linked to his criticism of Pride organizers
A D.C. Superior Court judge on Feb. 6 partially approved an anti-stalking order against a local LGBTQ activist requested last October by the Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based LGBTQ group that organizes the city’s annual Pride events.
The ruling by Judge Robert D. Okun requires Darren Pasha to stay at least 100 feet away from Capital Pride’s staff, board members, and volunteers until the time of a follow up court hearing he scheduled for April 17.
In his ruling at the Feb. 6 hearing, which was virtual rather than held in-person at the courthouse, Okun said he had changed the distance that Capital Pride had requested for the stay-away, anti-stalking order from 200 yards to 100 feet. The court records show that the judge also denied a motion filed earlier by Pasha, who did not attend the hearing, to “quash” the Capital Pride civil case against him.
Pasha told the Washington Blade he suffered an injury and damaged his mobile phone by falling off his scooter on the city’s snow-covered streets that prevented him from calling in to join the Feb. 6 court hearing.
In his own court filings without retaining an attorney, Pasha has strongly denied the stalking related allegations against him by Capital Pride, saying “no credible or admissible evidence has been provided” to show he engaged in any wrongdoing.
The Capital Pride complaint initially filed in court on Oct. 27, 2025, includes an 18-page legal brief outlining its allegations against Pasha and an additional 167-page addendum of “supporting exhibits” that includes multiple statements by witnesses whose names are blacked out.
“Over the past year, Defendant Darren Pasha (“DSP”) has engaged in a sustained, and escalating course of conduct directed at CPA, including repeated and unwanted contact, harassment, intimidation, threats, manipulation, and coercive behavior targeting CPA staff, board members, volunteers, and affiliates,” the Capital Pride complaint states.
In his initial 16-page response to the complaint, Pasha says the Capital Pride complaint appears to be a form of retaliation against him for a dispute he has had with the organization and its then president, Ashley Smith, last year.
“It is evident that the document is replete with false, misleading, and unsubstantiated assertions,” he said of the complaint.
Smith, who has since resigned from his role as board president, did not respond to a request by the Blade for comment at the time the Capital Pride court complaint was filed against Pasha.
Capital Pride Executive Director Ryan Bos and the attorney representing the group in its legal action against Pasha, Nick Harrison, did not immediately respond to a Blade request for comment on the judge’s Feb. 6 ruling.
District of Columbia
D.C. pays $500,000 to settle lawsuit brought by gay Corrections Dept. employee
Alleged years of verbal harassment, slurs, intimidation
The D.C. government on Feb. 5 agreed to pay $500,000 to a gay D.C. Department of Corrections officer as a settlement to a lawsuit the officer filed in 2021 alleging he was subjected to years of discrimination at his job because of his sexual orientation, according to a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C.
The statement says the lawsuit, filed on behalf of Sgt. Deon Jones by the ACLU of D.C. and the law firm WilmerHale, alleged that the Department of Corrections, including supervisors and co-workers, “subjected Sgt. Jones to discrimination, retaliation, and a hostile work environment because of his identity as a gay man, in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act.”
Daniel Gleick, a spokesperson for D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, said the mayor’s office would have no comment on the lawsuit settlement. A spokesperson for the Office of the D.C. Attorney General, which represents the city against lawsuits, said the office has a longstanding policy of not commenting on litigation like the Deon Jones lawsuit.
Bowser and her high-level D.C. government appointees, including Japer Bowles, director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, have spoken out against LGBTQ-related discrimination.
“Jones, now a 28-year veteran of the Department and nearing retirement, faced years of verbal abuse and harassment from coworkers and incarcerated people alike, including anti-gay slurs, threats, and degrading treatment,” the ACLU’s statement says.
“The prolonged mistreatment took a severe toll on Jones’s mental health, and he experienced depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and 15 anxiety attacks in 2021 alone,” it says.
“For years, I showed up to do my job with professionalism and pride, only to be targeted because of who I am,” Jones says in the ACLU statement. “This settlement affirms that my pain mattered – and that creating hostile workplaces has real consequences,” he said.
He added, “For anyone who is LGBTQ or living with a disability and facing workplace discrimination or retaliation, know this: you are not powerless. You have rights. And when you stand up, you can achieve justice.”
The settlement agreement, a link to which the ACLU provided in its statement announcing the settlement, states that plaintiff Jones agrees, among other things, that “neither the Parties’ agreement, nor the District’s offer to settle the case, shall in any way be construed as an admission by the District that it or any of its current or former employees, acted wrongfully with respect to Plaintiff or any other person, or that Plaintiff has any rights.”
Scott Michelman, the D.C. ACLU’s legal director said that type of disclaimer is typical for parties that agree to settle a lawsuit like this.
“But actions speak louder than words,” he told the Blade. “The fact that they are paying our client a half million dollars for the pervasive and really brutal harassment that he suffered on the basis of his identity for years is much more telling than their disclaimer itself,” he said.
The settlement agreement also says Jones would be required, as a condition for accepting the agreement, to resign permanently from his job at the Department of Corrections. ACLU spokesperson Andy Hoover said Jones has been on administrative leave since March 2022. Jones couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
“This is really something that makes sense on both sides,” Michelman said of the resignation requirements. “The environment had become so toxic the way he had been treated on multiple levels made it difficult to see how he could return to work there.”
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