Popular restaurant owner Greg Leon dies one week after murder conviction
Greg Leon, the successful Lexington County restaurant owner who established a popular chain of Mexican restaurants and who was convicted earlier this month of murdering his wife’s lover, died Friday night at a Columbia hospital.
The news was announced in a tweet by Eric Bland, Leon’s longtime friend and attorney.
Bland did not give a cause of death.
At the time of his death, Leon, 56, had been an inmate in the S.C. Department of Corrections in the first weeks of a 30-year prison sentence.
The Corrections agency had no immediate announcement.
In his tweet, Bland paid tribute to Leon, saying, “He left a legacy for sure... He was super religious. I met with him on Thursday and ... he told me God has a plan for him and that somehow he believed some good will come to him.”.
Bland, who was with Leon in the hospital when he died, said the medical staff at Prisman
Leon, who started the San Jose Mexican chain of Midlands restaurants, was convicted July 6 of murdering 28-year-old Arturo Bravo Santos on Valentine’s Day 2016. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison on the murder charge and another five years for possession of a weapon during a violent crime. The sentences were to be served concurrently.
Bravo Santos was killed after Leon followed his wife to a park-and-ride in Lexington County on Valentine’s Day 2016. There, Leon found Bravo Santos with Leon’s wife in the back seat of a pickup truck.
When he was shot, Bravo Santos was naked except for a pair of socks.
Leon had tracked his wife to the park-and-ride with a GPS tracker he had hidden in her car. Leon testified that he shot Bravo Santos in self defense because the younger man threatened him and acted as if he was reaching for a gun.
Throughout the trial, defense attorneys repeatedly argued that there was no concrete evidence of premeditation. They also said forensic evidence supported Leon’s claim that Bravo Santos appeared to be reaching for a weapon.
“Greg Leon had one second… to make a life altering decision about whether or not he was in immediate danger,” Jack Swerling, one of Leon’s attorneys, told the jury in his closing argument.
Before Leon, 56, was sentenced, seven people testified with emotion about what they called Leon’s good character. They included two of his sons, a former Town of Lexington councilman and a man who said Leon had saved his home from foreclosure.
“He is without question the hardest working businessman I have ever met in my life... There are so many people that depend on Greg, their livelihoods, their families... my life is crushed,” said Eric Bland, Leon’s corporate attorney and and a long time friend.
