Midlands Mexican restaurant owner’s murder trial delayed until 2022

The trial of a Midlands area Mexican restaurant operator, charged with murder in the 2016 Valentine’s Day slaying of his wife’s alleged lover, has been delayed until next year.

Greg Leon’s trial in the murder of Arturo Bravo will likely begin sometime next summer, said 11th Circuit Solicitor Rick Hubbard.

Leon, who has admitted to the killing — he told 911, “I shot my wife’s lover” — has pleaded not guilty and asserted he acted in self-defense. The solicitor’s office did not accept that version of events and charged Leon with murder.

Bravo, 28, who was only wearing a pair of socks when he was shot, is alleged to have been a member of a Mexican drug cartel, Las Zetas, according to defense filings in the case.

Leon was already in the news at the time of the 2016 shooting.

A month earlier, he 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, he pleaded guilty in state court to paying former Lexington County Sheriff Jimmy Metts money to let undocumented workers who worked at Leon’s 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.

The prominence of Leon, 54, and unusual details of the killing, which took place in the back seat of an SUV in a public parking lot, have combined to give the case a heightened degree of public interest, including from media outside of South Carolina.

Last year, The Los Angeles Times reported, “Gregorio Leon drove to the outskirts of Lexington, S.C., the night of Feb. 14, 2016, with a gun by his side and rage in his heart.”

The story described Leon, a naturalized citizen, as “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.”

Hubbard told The State numerous factors have contributed to the delay of the trial:

▪ Leon’s main lawyer, state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Richland, is excused from court appearances during the time the Legislature is in session, typically lasts from January through the first week of May. Since the trial is expected to take up to two weeks, it has to be scheduled during a part of the year when the Legislature is not in session, Hubbard said.

▪ The COVID-19 pandemic has for more than a year at times closed down court operations and, in any case, greatly slowed down the pace of trails and hearings.

▪ The capital murder case of Tim Jones, who was found guilty by a Lexington County jury of murdering his five school-age children and then sentenced to death, took months and months of court time before the pandemic started.

“It’s just one of these things that’s out of everybody’s control as far as scheduling,” Hubbard said.

Harpootlian said his schedule is packed with state business until next summer. Much of this fall, he said he’ll be dealing with scheduled reapportionment and budget matters. Most of the first half of 2022 is taken up with the legislative session, which meets three days a week.

Just to prepare for the trial will take him several months, Harpootlian said.

Harpootlian declined to discuss the case, except to say, “Leon is pleading not guilty.”

State Judge Eugene “Bubba” Griffith is presiding over the case.

This story was originally published August 6, 2021 at 3:58 PM.