Witness says Midlands restaurateur paid her to lie about slain victim’s gang connections

Arturo Bravo Santos was in the middle of more than one love triangle when he was shot and killed by Greg Leon, the husband of a woman Bravos Santos was seeing, according to testimony from his roommate and long time romantic partner.

In addition to Leon’s wife, other female admirers lavished Bravo Santos with gifts, according to the roommate’s testimony. At one point, he had a 17-year-old girlfriend while he was in a multi-year relationship with the roommate, Ruby Sierra.

But his affair with Rachel Leon strained their relationship, Sierra said. She thought it was dangerous to be mixed up with a married woman. “If (Rachel) didn’t care, he didn’t care even less,” Sierra said.

After Bravo Santos was killed, Sierra became an undercover informant for police investigators, wearing a microphone in 2022 in an operation designed to catch Leon engaged in witness tampering.

In Lexington County court Thursday, prosecutors from the 11th Circuit Solicitor’s Office and Leon’s defense attorneys bickered over sordid details of Bravo Santos’ personal life. They also sparred over whether the taped conversations proved Leon attempted to get a witness to lie.

On the stand, Sierra described how a woman named Maria Moreno, who worked with Leon and described herself as being close to him, arranged for her to provide false statements that would paint Bravo Santos as a sadistic gang leader. Sierra, a transgender woman who works as a baker, had lived as a roommate and romantic partner for four years with Bravo Santos after the two met at a party in 2011.

On two occasions, when it appeared that Leon’s criminal case was moving forward, Moreno encouraged Sierra to make damaging statements about Bravo Santos. In early 2022, Sierra alerted law enforcement, and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division was assigned to conduct a sting.

On Feb. 7, 2022, Sierra agreed to go with Moreno to record the statements about Bravo Santos. Sierra was secretly accompanied by three SLED agents and a translator, let by agent Phil Turner.

On recordings made with a hidden pinhole camera worn by Sierra, Moreno tells her that Leon’s case was closed but the courts needed the statement for their records. In reality, Leon’s case was moving forward after being delayed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The women met in a car in the parking lot of attorney Dick Harpootlian’s law firm. At the time Harpootlian was one of Leon’s attorneys.

Moreno instructed Sierra to act frightened and to make false statements to attorneys at Harpootlian’s law firm. Turner said that there was no evidence that the attorneys knew anything about the plan.

It was important that Sierra claim Bravo Santos had been the leader of a gang called El Tigres (the tigers), named after his own supposed nickname, Moreno said. Sierra also was encouraged to say that gang members had called her from Mexico promising to enact revenge against Leon for killing their leader. Brian Zwolack, a sergearnt with the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department, testified that there was no record of Bravo Santos or any of his aliases in any gang databases.

But Moreno urged Sierra to say that Bravo Santos was “the scum of the earth” who watched child pornography, raped her with a gun in her mouth, and once ordered her to drive to North Carolina to collect an underage girl for him while she was recovering from a chest surgery.

“He would not put his weapons down, even when he was eating,” Sierra was encouraged to say. “He lived like a crazy person, if someone knocked on the door he went for his weapon, ... that helps Goyo.”

Prosecutors have argued that “Goyo” is Greg Leon. His voice can be heard on two phone calls captured on the recording, where he urges Sierra to do what Maria says.

“Were any of those true?” Deputy Solicitor Suzanne Mayes asked Sierra.

“No. It’s false,” Sierra replied.

After the meeting, the two traveled to a San Jose restaurant and met with Leon. Morena went into a back room with Leon and returned putting cash in her pocket, Sierra said. For Sierra’s cooperation, Maria gave her $500 in nine $50 bills, two twenties and a ten, which 11th Circuit Solicitor Rick Hubbard meticulously counted out and laid on the rail in front of the jury.

But in a lengthy cross examination, Swerling argued that Leon never asked Sierra to lie. It was Moreno who instructed Sierra on the stories she should tell, who promised that Leon could offer either money or help getting a visa and who paid Sierra.

“Maria was getting orders from someone,” Sierra shot back.

But Sierra acknowledged there was some truth contained in the statements she had been asked to make.

She had received calls from Mexico inquiring about Leon after Bravo Santos’ death. But she said the always smiling and singing Bravo Santos didn’t not even own a weapon, much less lead a gang of killers.

When Bravo Santos was 23, he had also dated a 17-year-old girl who followed him to North Carolina when he went there for work. The girl’s mother, who Sierra said initially gave her blessing to the relationship, filed a police report when her daughter left South Carolina.

It was true that women would give him gifts, Sierra said, but it was far from Morena’s claim that Bravo Santos was dedicated “to only winning the hearts of married women with money so he could extort them later.”

“They gave him presents because they wanted him, but nobody was obligated to do that,” Sierra said on cross examination.

“Do you know what the word gigolo means? Somebody who takes advantage of women,” defense attorney Jack Swerling replied.

But one of the gifts strained the relationshuip between Bravo Santos and Sierra: the 2014 silver Toyota Tundra pickup that Rachel Leon bought for him just three days before he was killed. Sierra said she and Bravo Santos had fought before he left with Rachel Leon and their third roommate to buy the truck, and she even offered to leave their house. On Valentine’s Day they agreed to discuss it further, but Bravo Santos never returned home. He was shot and killed inside of the backseat of the truck.

“Did you care about him until the day he died?” Mayes asked.

“Yes, until now,” Sierra said.