All charges dropped against personal injury attorney Leonard Hill in Center City shooting case
Hill, 56, was previously offered admittance to a diversion program by the District Attorney's Office, but a judge denied the request.
All charges were dropped against Leonard Hill, a prominent personal injury attorney accused of aggravated assault and related crimes for shooting and injuring a man during an altercation outside a Center City cigar bar in 2023.
Prosecutors dropped the charges Friday morning shortly before Hill, 56, was set to go to a bench trial before Common Pleas Judge J. Scott O’Keefe.
In addition to aggravated assault, Hill will not face charges of possessing an instrument of a crime, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, and tampering with evidence.
Aggravated assault, a felony and the most serious of those offenses, carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Hill’s attorney, Fortunato N. Perri, declined to comment on the decision.
The outcome marks a victory for Hill, who had previously hoped to resolve his case through the city’s diversion program rather than a courtroom.
Last year, in a highly unusual move in an aggravated assault case, the District Attorney’s Office offered to admit Hill to the diversion program instead of going to trial.
Had Hill participated, his case would have been expunged after completing a period of probation and community service, surrendering the legally owned firearm police recovered from his Bala Cynwyd home, and donating $25,000 to an anti-violence group.
District Attorney Larry Krasner said in an interview at the time that request was “specifically my decision.” The district attorney called information about the case, some of it revealed after Hill’s arrest, both unique and highly unusual, though he declined to elaborate.
A spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office declined to comment Friday.
After prosecutors sought diversion last February, Municipal Court Judge William Austin Meehan Jr. denied prosecutors’ request.
The judge said Hill’s case was not appropriate for diversion, which is typically reserved for cases involving relatively minor offenses, and urged prosecutors to resolve the case through different means.
It’s rare for those accused of shootings to be offered diversion, otherwise known as the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition. Several nonfatal shooting cases have ended with diversion since 2011: participants usually include those charged with nonviolent offenses such as DUIs, petty theft, or drug possession.
Attorneys for Hill — whose billboards advertising his legal services feature prominently on Philadelphia’s freeway system — maintained their client acted in self-defense when firing twice at a man outside the Ashton Cigar Bar on the 1500 block of Walnut Street.
The episode began when Hill and a bar manager tried to separate a woman and another man she said was intoxicated and accosting her, according to court documents.
The confrontation spilled outside, where Hill and the man began to argue. Hill drew a firearm and fired once during the argument, the court documents said. Hill fired again as the man ran away, striking the 38-year-old in the calf.
Hill left the scene and changed his clothes before returning, and did not tell officers who responded to the bar that he had fired shots, according to the documents. Investigators recovered video of the shooting and interviewed the bar manager, who identified Hill as the shooter but said he had fired in self-defense.
Perri, Hill’s attorney, later said the man who Hill shot had been wielding a knife — a detail not included in his arrest paperwork — and said his client made a “split-second decision” to defend himself and others in a dangerous situation.
Prosecutors’ decision to offer Hill diversion last year did not come without criticism.
Keisha Hudson, head of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, told the Inquirer in February 2025 that she could not recall a single instance in which one of the organization’s clients was offered diversion after shooting someone.
She said the case’s handling was emblematic of a justice system that treats poor defendants and those with money differently. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
Staff writer Ellie Rushing contributed to this article.