Repeat offender represented by Gil Gatch
- SCCLR Newsletter
- Dec 11, 2025
- 2 min read
By: Alan Hovorka
CHARLESTON — A man out of jail while facing charges of sexual assault, kidnapping and attempted murder has been arrested in connection with another alleged assault and kidnapping.
Walter Clayton Pate was arrested late Dec. 10 by the Charleston Police Department, which charged him with first-degree assault and battery, first-degree burglary and kidnapping. A police report was not immediately available detailing the circumstances of his arrest.
Pate’s attorney, state Rep. Gil Gatch, declined to comment.
Marcia Leuck, a paralegal, told The Post and Courier the assault and break-in happened at her daughter’s home. Pate allegedly had followed her daughter home from an Avondale bar on Dec. 9, waited until she fell asleep and then broke into her daughter’s West Ashley home, she said. Leuck said that her daughter woke up when he made a noise and that a struggle ensued before Pate fled the house.
Pate had initially been charged in July 2023 with first-degree criminal sexual misconduct and kidnapping after he was accused of binding a woman's arms and legs and sexually assaulting her. In November 2023, Pate was then accused of punching a different woman in the face and strangling her after she confronted him about sex tapes Pate recorded without her consent. Pate is charged with voyeurism in both cases after police said they found nonconsensual sexual recordings involving the women.
Pate had been out of jail since June 2024. Bentley Price, while serving as a 9th Circuit judge, set bond for Pate just as his term on the bench expired. Prosecutors sought to prevent Pate’s release in citing a psychological evaluation that they said indicated he was a danger to the community. Price declined to require GPS monitoring or house arrest.
