SC restaurateur Greg Leon’s 7-year-old Valentine’s Day murder trial now set for June
The much-delayed murder trial by jury of prominent Midlands Mexican restaurant operator Greg Leon has been delayed once again — this time until June.
A shortage of court-qualified interpreters, presumably Spanish-English, has caused the latest delay, according to a March 16 court order filed in Lexington County by state Judge Walton McLeod.
The weeks of June 19 and June 26 have now been set aside for Leon’s trial, McLeod wrote in the order. Leon was supposed to go on trial this week.
Leon was charged with murder in 2016 after he shot and killed his wife’s alleged lover, Arturo Bravo, while she and Bravo were in the back seat of an SUV in a public parking area near the intersection of Interstate 20 and U.S. 378.
The case gained notoriety because Leon is well-known across the Midlands for his chain of popular Mexican restaurants that employ hundreds of people. The killing took place on Valentine’s Day, and he told a 911 operator that “I shot my wife’s lover.” At the time of shooting, Bravo was clad only in his socks, documents say.
A warrant in the case said the shooting was captured on video.
Leon and his attorneys have said Leon acted in self-defense.
The 11th Judicial Circuit Solicitor’s Office rejected Leon’s explanation and charged him with murder.
Leon is represented by veteran Columbia criminal defense lawyer Jack Swerling.
McLeod’s order said the case “requires interpreters, and although courthouse staff has worked diligently to schedule interpreters for the duration of the trial, it remains uncertain whether interpreters will be available when needed.”
State court officials knowledgeable about the status of Spanish-English courtroom interpreters in South Carolina state courts could not be reached.
In a March 9 court order by state Supreme Court Chief Justice Donald Beatty, the S.C. Court Administration “will maintain a centralized list of certified or otherwise qualified interpreters.” Court-appointed certified interpreters are to be paid $65 per hour plus mileage, the order says.
Leon’s trial, now seven years old, has been delayed numerous times, including for COVID-19 and Lexington County’s 2019 lengthy death penalty trial of Tim Jones, who was convicted of killing his five children and sentenced to death.
Last July, state Judge Debra McCaslin set the trial for January.
“It’s the oldest case on my docket,” McCaslin said. But the trial was delayed again.
At the court hearing at which McCaslin spoke last year, more than 40 friends and family showed up at the Lexington County courthouse in support of Leon.
In 2020, the Los Angeles Times wrote about Leon, describing him as a naturalized American citizen who is “the type of guy who paid the medical bills of a worker struck with brain cancer, who hosted epic barbecue tailgates at University of South Carolina football games and donated thousands of dollars to his home village in Mexico.”
Midlands magazine Columbia Living described Leon in 2015 as “a people person who doesn’t mind the 12-hour days needed to get it all done.” He has owned numerous restaurants under the names San Jose and Pancho’s, the article said. He lives on a 30-acre spread in Lexington County and raises Andalusian and Friesian horses, the article said.
A month before the 2016 shooting, Leon was fined $180,000 in federal court after being found guilty of charges he hired 60 undocumented workers as employees in his restaurants.
In 2015, Leon pleaded guilty in state court to paying former Lexington County Sheriff Jimmy Metts money to let undocumented workers who worked at his restaurants out of Metts’ jail. Metts was later allowed to plead guilty to conspiracy to harbor undocumented immigrants and spent a year in federal prison.
