Former lawyer who pulled gun on ex-wife in restaurant convicted of attempted murder

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Former lawyer who pulled gun on ex-wife in restaurant convicted of attempted murder

By Kevin Davis

September 10, 2026, 9:56 am CDT

Prosecutors said former Ohio lawyer Matthew Exton tried to shoot his ex-wife April 11, 2025, at a restaurant in Toledo, Ohio. (Surveillance image from the Lucas County, Ohio, prosecutor’s office/YouTube)

A former Ohio attorney who tried to carry out a “public execution” of his ex-wife in a Toledo, Ohio, restaurant last year has been convicted of attempted murder.

Matthew Exton, 43, stepped up to his ex-wife while she was dining with friends in the restaurant, aimed the gun and squeezed the trigger, but the safety was on. A waiter tackled him before he could try again, the Lucas County, Ohio, prosecutor’s office said in a Sept. 4 statement.

During a trial that ended last week, Exton testified that he’d worked as a prosecutor in Michigan and was licensed to practice law in Ohio. He’d handled divorce, family and bankruptcy cases, he said, but he became homeless after he split up with his wife, according to NBC News.

Exton testified that he was frustrated by how she’d handled certain aspects of their divorce when he pulled a Colt Defender on her in the downtown Toledo restaurant April 11, 2025.

“I did not fire,” he said. “I did not hurt her. I did not try to hurt her.”

The dramatic event was captured on surveillance video.

“Nothing in their training and soft openings at the restaurant could have prepared the staff for what walked through that door,” Julia Bates, the Lucas County prosecuting attorney, said in the statement.

Sentencing is set for Sept. 21.

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