A Toledo waiter wrestled a loaded gun away from a 43-year-old criminal defense attorney who aimed it at his ex-wife on a crowded opening night, and a jury has now convicted the lawyer of attempted murder.
Matthew Exton walked into Sabira, an Italian-inspired restaurant in Toledo, Ohio, on April 11, 2025, carrying a handgun loaded with one round in the chamber and seven more in the magazine. His ex-wife was sitting with her family. Exton aimed the weapon at her at close range and appeared to squeeze the trigger. The gun did not fire. The safety was on. He appeared to try again.
That is when Tracy Cole Jr., a waiter at Sabira, charged Exton and tackled him to the ground while the attorney fumbled with the weapon. The intervention almost certainly prevented a killing. On Friday, a jury found Exton guilty of attempted murder and two counts of felonious assault, charges that could send him to prison for years.
The sequence that led to the attack started earlier that evening. Exton had been drinking at a bar adjacent to Sabira. At some point he spotted his ex-wife inside the restaurant, which was celebrating its opening night. He sent her a drink. Then, as he left, he spat at her.
He came back with the handgun.
Surveillance footage captured the confrontation. Exton can be seen raising the weapon toward his ex-wife before Cole barrels into him and drags him to the floor. The ex-wife, who has not been publicly identified, was sitting with family members when the attack began.
Lucas County Prosecutor Julia Bates told local station WTOL that restaurant staff had no way to anticipate what was coming:
"Nothing in their training... could have prepared the staff for what walked through that door."
Bates went further in describing the prosecution's theory of the case. She said Exton arrived not to eat but to harm.
"The defendant did not come with the intention of having a meal. He came with anger in him and with the intention to commit a public execution of his ex-wife at the restaurant that day."
At trial, Exton offered a different account. He testified that he did not mean to pull the trigger, according to the Toledo Blade. He claimed he pointed the gun at his ex-wife to pressure her to speed up the sale of their former home.
The jury did not buy it. Prosecutors had the footage, the loaded weapon, and the fact that Exton appeared to attempt to fire twice before Cole intervened. A man who brings a loaded handgun into a restaurant on opening night, after drinking, after spitting at his ex-wife, after leaving and returning, is not negotiating a real estate deal.
Exton, 43, had practiced criminal defense law with offices in Sylvania, a suburb of Toledo, and in Traverse City, Michigan. His law license was suspended in May 2025, weeks after the attack. The body that suspended the license was not identified in available reporting, and it remains unclear whether the suspension is permanent.
Cole's decision to rush an armed man saved his customer's life. The waiter had no law enforcement training. He was working a shift on a restaurant's first night open. When a gunman raised a weapon a few feet away, Cole moved toward the danger, not away from it.
No injuries to the ex-wife or other diners were reported. Whether Cole himself was hurt during the struggle has not been disclosed.
Exton now faces sentencing. The conviction on attempted murder alone carries significant prison time under Ohio law. No sentencing date has been announced.
Several questions remain unanswered. The ex-wife's identity has been withheld. The case number and docket have not been made public in the reporting so far. And the full story of what drove Exton from a barstool to a loaded weapon in the span of one evening has not been told, at least not in any version the jury found credible.
Tracy Cole Jr. showed up for work that night to serve dinner. He left having done something most people never have to do and few would manage: he put himself between a gun and a stranger, and he won. That is not training. That is character.
