Jared Leonard, the Evergreen restaurateur behind Campfire Concepts and AJ’s Pit Bar-B-Q, admitted Friday to defrauding federal aid programs out of $2.3 million and not paying $434,000 in taxes.
Leonard, 45, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and a tax charge in a Chicago courtroom and agreed to repay the government $2.7 million. He faces 37 to 46 months in prison.
Leonard’s lawyer, Cheryl Bormann in Chicago, did not answer a request for comment.
Leonard and his wife, Amanda, owned Campfire Lakewood and Campfire Evergreen, AJ’s Pit Bar-B-Q in south Denver and AJ’s Pit Bar-B-Q Steakhouse near West Wash Park, and Grabowski’s Pizzeria in Lakewood. The steakhouse closed in 2024, the Campfires and Grabowski’s in early 2025, and the other AJ’s was seized over unpaid taxes last year.
Between April 2020 and February 2021, Leonard submitted 10 applications for Paycheck Protection Program funds and Economic Injury Disaster Loans that contained inflated employee and revenue figures, he acknowledged in a federal plea agreement March 27.
AJ’s received $413,500 in federal aid as a result. An additional $150,000 went to Grabowski’s in Lakewood. Leonard’s restaurants in Chicago received the aid as well.
“The defendant knowingly used the loan proceeds to make purchases for his personal benefit, including the cash purchase of a personal residence in Elmgreen, Colorado (sic) on or about June 17, 2020, for approximately $1.2 million,” according to the plea agreement.
The home Leonard purchased was on Elmgreen Lane in Evergreen. It has since been sold.
Investigators also found that just before the pandemic in 2019 and early 2020, Leonard withheld $434,390 from his employees for income taxes, Social Security and the like, but did not turn that money over to the government. He has now agreed to pay that amount as restitution.
For its part, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago agreed to drop charges of money laundering, bank fraud and the transportation of stolen property in exchange for the two guilty pleas.
Leonard will remain behind bars until his June 30 sentencing, which is unusual in a pandemic fraud case. Last year, a fellow Denver restaurateur warned he might try to flee to Mexico.
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