Legal Justice
Former lawyer who pulled gun on ex-wife in restaurant convicted of tried homicide
Prosecutors mentioned former Ohio lawyer Matthew Exton tried to shoot his ex-wife April 11, 2025, at a restaurant in Toledo, Ohio. (Surveillance picture from the Lucas County, Ohio, prosecutor’s workplace/YouTube)
A former Ohio lawyer who tried to hold out a “public execution” of his ex-wife in a Toledo, Ohio, restaurant final yr has been convicted of tried homicide.
Matthew Exton, 43, stepped as much as his ex-wife whereas she was eating with associates within the restaurant, aimed the gun and squeezed the set off, however the security was on. A waiter tackled him earlier than he may strive once more, the Lucas County, Ohio, prosecutor’s workplace mentioned in a Sept. 4 statement.
Throughout a trial that ended final week, Exton testified that he’d labored as a prosecutor in Michigan and was licensed to observe regulation in Ohio. He’d dealt with divorce, household and chapter instances, he mentioned, however he turned homeless after he break up up along with his spouse, in response to NBC News.
Exton testified that he was annoyed by how she’d dealt with sure points of their divorce when he pulled a Colt Defender on her within the downtown Toledo restaurant April 11, 2025.
“I didn’t hearth,” he mentioned. “I didn’t harm her. I didn’t attempt to harm her.”
The dramatic occasion was captured on surveillance video.
“Nothing of their coaching and mushy openings on the restaurant may have ready the employees for what walked via that door,” Julia Bates, the Lucas County prosecuting lawyer, mentioned within the assertion.
Sentencing is about for Sept. 21.
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