Matthew Exton Sentenced to Up to 24½ Years, a New Trial Denied for Gerhardt Konig, and Tomasz Kosowski Starts Cross-Examining

0:03 Calaroga Shark Media. Good morning. This is Daily Crime and Justice from Calaroga Media, powered by AI. I'm Garrett Fisher. It's Tuesday, September 22nd, 2026. Yesterday in Toledo, Matthew Exton was sentenced to up to 24 and a half years in prison for walking into a restaurant on its opening night and trying to shoot his ex-wife. He spent the hearing trying to fire his own lawyer, accusing the judge of running for re-election, and telling the court that pointing a loaded gun at a woman is not harm if it does not go off. The judge answered him by pressing play. In Honolulu, a judge denied a new trial for a Maui doctor convicted of trying to kill his wife on a hiking trail. And in the process, we learned something about that case I cannot stop thinking about.

0:55 Before the verdict was read, somebody watching the trial online predicted exactly what it would be. And in Largo, Florida, the surgeon defending himself in a death penalty case has started asking questions. One of them was whether he could put the prosecutor in a trash bag. Let's get into it. On April 11th of 2025, a restaurant called Sabira opened in the warehouse district of Toledo. A man named Matthew Exton, who was a lawyer, walked in, ordered a drink at the bar, sent another drink over to the table where his ex-wife was eating dinner with her parents, spat toward them, and walked out. He came back a few minutes later with a loaded Colt Defender, one round in the chamber and seven in the magazine. He pointed it at his ex-wife from a few feet away and pulled the trigger.

1:45 Two days later, in a petition for a protection order, she wrote that he pointed it at her chest, pulled the trigger multiple times, and that the gun made rapid clicking noises. The safety was on. And a waiter who had rehearsed for an opening night, not for this, ran at him and tackled him and wrapped his hand over the gun. At trial, asked what he had been doing in that moment, the waiter gave a two-word answer. Not die. On September 4th, a Lucas County jury convicted Exton of attempted murder, two counts of felonious assault, and multiple firearm specifications. They acquitted him on one remaining assault count. Yesterday, he was sentenced. And the hearing was, in its way, a summary of everything this case has been. It started with Exton trying to stop it from happening. He told Judge Gary Cook he had fired his attorney, Ronnie Wingate, and asked for a continuance to find new counsel. He said he had fired Wingate weeks earlier. Wingate told the court he had learned about it on Sunday afternoon. Cook was not interested. He said that was nothing but an act to try to delay the hearing and denied it. When he asked Exton directly whether he wanted to represent himself, Exton gave long answers the judge called nonsense and said he was depressed and confused and unable to say. Cook told him that at some point he would exhaust all his arguments and then the court would proceed. At one point, Exton accused the judge of bias, telling him he was an unopposed Democrat on the ballot in an election year.

3:18 That was simply wrong. Cook was reelected in 2024 and his term runs into 2031. Then Exton spoke for about 20 minutes. He said he accepted responsibility for pointing the gun at his ex-wife. And then, in the same breath, he said that was not harm because it did not fire. He said he was depressed and suicidal after the divorce and homeless. He said he came upon his ex-wife and her parents by chance and that he happened to have his gun on him. He described himself as a victim because of the head injury he suffered when the waiter tackled him. He brought up gun control. He said the charges against him were political. And he told the court that guns do not kill people. People kill people. That he did not kill anybody, did not hurt anybody, and did not try. While the prosecutor spoke, he kept interrupting, repeating the word liar every few seconds. Prosecutor Mike Loisel told the court Exton nearly perpetrated a mass casualty event in the middle of a crowded restaurant and that he had no regard for anyone or anything other than himself.

4:25 He called him dangerous and a narcissist and asked for consecutive sentences arguing he must be incarcerated for a long time. And then Judge Cook did the thing that ended every argument Exton had made. He played the video. The surveillance footage from Sabira, Exton walking in, Exton raising the gun at his ex-wife, and then the moment after it fails to fire. Cook told him what that moment shows to anyone who watches it. He said Exton was flummoxed by the fact that the gun did not go off and was trying to fix the safety. And he said that is the moment that cements the intent. He called it chilling. He said that if not for that safety, Exton could have been facing capital murder charges. and he said nobody knows what would have happened if that safety had not protected them. Then he sentenced him to up to 24 and a half years. Exton says he will appeal. He has 30 days to file notice, and his case goes to Ohio's 6th District Court of Appeals. I want to say something about that 20-minute statement, because it is the whole case in miniature. I accept responsibility for pointing the gun.

5:33 That's not harm. It didn't fire. That is a man who spent his career in courtrooms, trying to argue that the only thing that matters is the outcome. And that since a mechanical safety and a waiter prevented the outcome, nothing happened. But the law does not work that way, and it never has. Attempt is a crime precisely because what you meant to do matters, not just what you managed to do. The safety did not make him innocent. It made him lucky. It made three people lucky. And the judge found his intent in the exact second he looked down at his gun and tried to make it work. There is one more thing worth noticing and you may have caught it already. Matthew Exton tried to fire his lawyer on the morning of his sentencing. Over in Largo, a surgeon on trial for his life has fired four sets of lawyers. Two very different men and the same instinct.

6:26 When the system is closing in, get rid of the person whose job is to help you. Now, a correction to something that has been circulating and a resolution to something we told you about last week. Last week, a claim was going around online that when Exton was asked his occupation on the witness stand, he gave a bizarre answer involving his sexual orientation. We went looking for it and could not find it in any trial coverage, so we did not repeat it. Now we know where it probably came from. According to the Toledo Blade, during closing arguments, as a prosecutor was discussing a voicemail he had left, Exton interrupted and shouted that he was God and the Antichrist. He used an anti-gay slur, and then he shouted about guns and the words, Hail Satan. That is what happened in that courtroom. It was not an answer about his job.

7:14 It was a slur shouted during the state's closing argument by a man who had to be removed and watched his own verdict on a live stream from a holding cell. We are not repeating the word, but it is worth knowing how the version you may have seen online was born. Something real and ugly got said, somebody garbled it, and within a day, it was a quotable line that never happened. That is a pattern we have watched all month. And there is a legal wrinkle in all of that behavior that matters for sentencing. Back in May, Judge Cook reviewed a doctor's report and rejected Exton's insanity defense, finding he was not suffering from a severe mental disease or defect at the time of the attack. the Ohio Supreme Court suspended his law license over concerns he posed a substantial threat of serious harm to the public. So whatever was driving that outburst and closing arguments, a court had already decided it did not rise to the level that excuses what happened at Sabira. He was a former prosecutor. He practiced family law. He had by prosecutor's account, two Michigan driver's licenses, an Ohio license, a birth certificate, a social security card, a passport, $ 620, and a set of handcuff keys in his pockets when that waiter took him down.

8:31 I'm still not naming his ex-wife or her parents, and I'm still not naming the waiter. Three people went home from dinner that night because a stranger in an apron put his hand over a pistol. When we come back, a Hawaii judge denies a new trial and a stranger on the internet called the verdict early. We spent a segment on this case last week, so here is the short version for anybody catching up. In March of 2025, on the Pali Puka Trail on Oahu, Dr. Gerhard Koenig, a Maui anesthesiologist, struck his wife Arielle in the head with a rock. Prosecutors said he tried to push her off a cliff and inject her with a syringe first, and only stopped when two hikers came upon them. He said she was the aggressor and that he acted in self-defense.

9:26 In April, a jury acquitted him of attempted murder and convicted him of attempted manslaughter based on extreme mental or emotional disturbance. Then two jurors told reporters they had not believed he intended to kill her. The foreperson signed an affidavit saying the panel never unanimously found intent to kill, which the defense argues Hawaii law requires even for attempted manslaughter. And separately, an anonymous commenter on a trial livestream claimed to have been texting with a juror during deliberations. Last week, we told you Judge Paul Wong brought the jurors back and drew a hard line. He would ask whether anyone communicated with an outsider. He would not ask what the jury actually decided about intent, because Hawaii's rules bar inquiring into jurors' internal reasoning. Nine jurors answered no on September 11th.

10:17 The last three came in on Friday. And on Friday, after three days of hearings, Wong denied the motion for a new trial. He ruled that there was no outside influence that affected the jury. And he said, in the language of his order, that the verdict was unanimous and impartial, and that based on his findings of fact and conclusions of law, the defendant's motion for a new trial was respectfully denied. Thomas Otake, Koenig's attorney, said they were disappointed and that they believe it was clear this was an illegal and flawed verdict because it was not unanimous. Now here's the detail that I did not have last week and it is the reason I wanted to come back to this. According to reporting on the ruling, the anonymous person on that livestream who claimed to be texting with a juror did something else. They correctly predicted the verdict before it was announced. And the judge still found no outside influence. Reporting on the ruling described him as acknowledging there were some signs there could have been some communication.

11:17 I want to be fair to Judge Wong about this because it sounds worse than it may be. A correct prediction is not proof of contact. This was a heavily watched trial with a very clear lesser included offense sitting on the verdict form. Plenty of people watching thought attempted manslaughter was the likely landing spots. Somebody guessing right is not the same as somebody knowing. And every juror questioned under oath individually said no one discussed the deliberations or the verdict with anyone outside. A judge is entitled to believe 12 people under oath over an anonymous comment. And earlier this summer, the Hawaii Supreme Court made clear that the party seeking a new trial has to show outside influence with specific, substantial evidence. An anonymous username is not that.

12:05 But I will say this plainly. Somewhere out there is a person who typed in public that they were talking to a juror and then correctly called the outcome. Either they were lucky in lying or they were not. And we are never going to know which. And notice what Wong's ruling actually rested on. He did not find that the texting claim was false. He found that it had not been proven to the standard the law requires and that 12 sworn denials outweighed one anonymous post. Those are different findings and the difference matters. It also tells you where the defense goes next. Otake has said the verdict was not unanimous on intent. That argument does not go away because the outside contact claim failed. It goes to an appellate court, which will have to decide whether a four-person sworn affidavit about what her jury did not find can ever be considered or whether the no impeachment rule shuts that door permanently. That is the cost of the rule we have been defending on this show for a month.

13:03 Deliberations are protected, verdicts are final, and sometimes that means a real question just goes unanswered forever. I think the rule is still right. I just do not think we should pretend it is free. Gerhard Koenig will be sentenced on January 8th. He faces up to 20 years. Otake asked for an earlier date, noting that by January, his client will have been in custody for more than eight months. He has been held without bail since the verdict. And his wife, Arielle Koenig, survived. She testified. She described the worst afternoon of her life to a room full of strangers. With a new trial denied, she does not have to do it again. That is the part of Friday's ruling that almost nobody is mentioning. When we come back, a trash bag, a photograph of a car, and a surgeon asking questions. Stephen Cozy was 41 years old. He was an attorney at a firm in Largo, Florida. On March 21st, 2023, he walked to the bathroom at work and never came back.

14:17 His body has never been found. Tomasz Kosowski, a 47-year-old Dartmouth-trained plastic surgeon, is on trial for his murder. He has pleaded not guilty, and he is presumed innocent. The state is seeking the death penalty. There is no jury. He is representing himself before Circuit Judge Joseph Ballone. On the first day, he did not give an opening statement and did not cross-examine a single witness. That has changed. He has now started cross-examining the state's witnesses. And he has started filing motions. He moved to throw out the DNA testimony, and the judge denied it. And then there was this. During one session, Kosowski asked the court to let him have a prosecutor step into a trash bag.

15:03 apparently to test its capacity. Presumably to argue that a body could not have fit, or to challenge the state's theory about how Stephen Causey was moved. Judge Bologna said no. I want to handle that carefully because it is going to be the clip everybody shares, and it is easy to make it a joke. A defense demonstration is a legitimate thing. Lawyers test the physical plausibility of the state's theory all the time. Can this fit in that? Could one person carry this? Is this door wide enough? Those are real questions, and if the prosecution's theory depends on a physical fact, the defense is allowed to attack it. But there is a reason judges supervise demonstrations tightly, and a reason you do not get to put the opposing attorney in a trash bag in front of a murder victim's family. And there is a reason experienced lawyers do this with measurements and experts rather than with theater. That is what self-representation looks like. A defendant with a genuine question, asked in the worst possible way. There is an old line in the legal profession that a man who represents himself has a fool for a client. It is usually said as a joke. In a death penalty case, it is not funny at all. And it is exactly why Judge Ballone appointed standby counsel and why the court has kept checking, repeatedly, whether Kasowski still wants to go on alone.

16:25 And to be fair to him, the shift this week is real. A man who sat in silence on day one is now objecting, cross-examining, and filing motions. Whether any of it helps him is a separate question. But he is contesting his case, which is more than we could say a week ago. Meanwhile, the state's case has kept building, and some of what came in this week is harder than anything we have described so far. A digital forensics detective with the Largo Police Department testified that Kosowski's online activity showed him researching Stephen Kazi, Kazi's home, and a paralyzing medication in the months before Kazi disappeared. And the detective testified that about a month before the killing, Kosowski took a photograph of Kazi's husband's car parked at their home.

17:12 Sit with that one for a second. Not Stephen Kazi's car, his husband's. At their house. Prosecutors also say Kosowski's own blood was found in the bathroom, along with large amounts of Kazi's. That a week before, he hid in an electrical closet at the firm and left a wagon and a cardboard box inside it. And that by the time investigators traced the contents of a dumpster to a landfill in Collier County, about a week had passed, and they searched and never found him. All of it is the state's allegation. The trial is ongoing. And for the first time, the defendant is pushing back. There is one more thing worth understanding about why the digital evidence matters so much in a case like this. Without a body, the state has to prove two things by circumstance. That Stephen Causey is dead, and that Tomasz Kasowski killed him. The blood and the DNA speak to the first. The research, the photograph, the hiding in the closet a week earlier speak to something else. They speak to premeditation, and premeditation is the line between second-degree murder and first-degree murder in Florida. It is also one of the aggravating factors that makes a case eligible for death. So every search and every photograph from the months before is not only about whether he did it, it is about whether he planned it, which is the question that decides whether he lives. The state expects to rest its case on Wednesday or Thursday. After that, Kosowski can present a defense if he chooses. And then one judge decides whether he is guilty of first-degree murder.

18:44 If he is, the same judge decides whether he lives. We are in Largo every day. Stephen Causey went to work on a Tuesday in a red sweater. A month earlier, somebody had been photographing the car in his driveway. Someone has to say his name. That's the show for Tuesday, September 22nd. Apple listeners, there is a button up top that says listen uninterrupted. It is $ 5 a month for this show and thousands of others across Calaroga Media, with no ads. And the first 30 days are free. It genuinely helps us keep making this every morning, so thank you to everybody who has done it. And on Spotify, tell me about the Hawaii case. An anonymous person online said they were talking to a juror and then called the verdict correctly, and a court found no outside influence.

19:36 Does that bother you? Or is that exactly how the rule is supposed to work? We could have a verdict in Largo by the end of this week. And a week from today, September 29th, Lindsay Clancy is back before Judge Sullivan when Plymouth County is expected to say whether it is trying that case again. I'm Garrett Fisher. Do better. A few notes on sourcing. On the Ohio case, Matthew Exton has been sentenced and has said he intends to appeal. Outlets have described both the counts of conviction and the length of the sentence slightly differently, including whether it is up to 24 and a half years or nearly 25. Ohio sentences for serious felonies are often expressed as a range with a maximum, and we have used the maximum as reported. His statements at sentencing are his own, and the court rejected them. Our account of his statements during closing arguments comes from reporting by the Toledo Blade. We have not repeated the slur. We have chosen not to name his ex-wife, her parents, or the restaurant employee who intervened, and outlets have spelled the ex-wife's name differently. The description of the gun and the sound it made comes from her own written statement in a petition for a protection order.

20:46 On the Hawaii case, Gerhard Koenig was convicted of attempted manslaughter and his motion for a new trial has been denied. He retains the right to appeal. The report that a live stream commenter predicted the verdict comes from local news coverage of the ruling. No juror has been found to have communicated with any outside party, and every juror questioned under oath denied it. On the Florida trial, Tomasz Kosowski has pleaded not guilty and is presumed innocent. The forensic evidence, the digital evidence, and the testimony described are the state's case and have not been ruled on. Our description of the purpose of his trash bag request is an inference from its context. He did not explain it on the record in any account we reviewed. A judge who has presided over this case for three years has found him competent to represent himself. And nothing here is a suggestion otherwise or a diagnosis of anyone. This episode discusses domestic violence and homicide. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence... The National Domestic Violence Hotline is available around the clock at 1-800-799-7233.