Plastic surgeon who represented himself in trial convicted of killing attorney in law office bathroom

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. (Gray News/AP) — A former plastic surgeon was convicted of murder in Florida.

A Pinellas County judge found Dr. Tomasz Kosowski guilty Wednesday of killing attorney Steven Cozzi.

Cozzi’s body was never found.

Kosowski represented himself during the trial and didn’t call any witnesses. He argued that it would not be physically possible for him to drag, move and lift Cozzi’s roughly 190-pound body by himself.

The state will seek the death penalty during sentencing.

Day of the murder

Authorities said Kosowski killed Cozzi in the bathroom of Cozzi’s law office moments after both participated in a March 21, 2023, conference call about a lengthy, acrimonious legal battle over medical billing.

Prosecutors said in court documents that Kosowski took the call from a Toyota pickup truck outside the office and that he had supplies to commit the killing, including trash bags, a syringe containing a paralyzing drug and a wagon to haul the corpse out.

Colleagues said Cozzi never returned to his desk after leaving to use the restroom. They reported him missing hours later. His keys, wallet and cellphone remained on his law office desk, and a work file was open on his computer.

Prosecutors allege Kosowski waited in the bathroom for Cozzi and killed him before dragging the body out of the building in a cart.

Surveillance footage shows a man enter the building and, hours later, drag a cart toward the parking lot.

Cozzi’s colleague eventually checked the office bathroom, which had an overwhelming smell of cleaning products and alcohol. There was blood on the walls, the toilet seat and the floor, a colleague testified.

Although Cozzi’s body has never been found, investigators used cellphone records and surveillance video to track Kosowski to a remote area west of Miami on the Tamiami Trail, also known as U.S. Highway 41. That’s where they believe Kosowski tossed the body into a dumpster that was eventually emptied by a garbage truck. The driver noticed an unusually “vile” smell at the stop, authorities said.

“Video from the garbage truck of the dumpster being emptied into the garbage truck shows a large garbage bag falling in a manner inconsistent with normal trash,” prosecutors said. The parcel’s shape and the way it fell looked consistent with something that might hold a human body, they said.

A police cadaver dog also indicated a body had been in the dumpster, according to court documents.

Trash from the route is typically hauled to a Collier County landfill, but authorities who searched the property for Cozzi’s body said the facility routinely compacts its trash, “making recovery efforts nearly impossible.”

Court documents detail prosecutors’ evidence against Kosowski, including Cozzi’s blood and DNA found in the law office bathroom and in the garage at Kosowski’s home, where it was mixed with the doctor’s DNA.

When Kosowski was arrested days after the alleged murder, investigators said he had $280,000 in cash, masks, duct tape, firearms, a ballistic vest with “EMS” written on it, law enforcement patches and a vial of succinylcholine, which is a paralyzing drug. A search of his home turned up about 200 guns, according to court documents.

Cozzi’s blood was found in the bed of Kosowski’s pickup truck and on a ballistic vest in the trunk of Kosowski’s second car, DNA results submitted at trial confirmed.

Potential motive

Kosowski, 44, is a graduate of Dartmouth College’s medical school and specialized in reconstructive breast surgery for eight years.

Cozzi represented a Dunedin, Florida-based medical practice that Kosowski alleged shorted him thousands of dollars in billings and damaged his reputation as a doctor.

The dispute got so heated that Kosowski tried to get Cozzi removed from the case and at one point allegedly called Cozzi a “scumbag” during an encounter in the same law office bathroom where prosecutors say the attorney was slain.

Kosowski expressed animosity for Cozzi as the civil proceedings stretched over years and plotted his murder for months, prosecutors say.

CNN reported that Cozzi’s husband and colleagues testified about his loving demeanor and upstanding professional ethics. They all told law enforcement at the time that Kosowski was the only person known to have a problem with Cozzi, quickly making the surgeon a person of interest in Cozzi’s disappearance.

Kosowski allegedly confronted Cozzi in the law office bathroom months earlier, on a break during a tense deposition for the civil case.

“He just called me a scumbag like the clients I represent,” Cozzi wrote in an email to his colleague immediately after the January incident.

Cozzi’s husband testified he was afraid of Kosowski after hearing about the aggressive confrontation. He got Cozzi pepper spray and fixed their home security camera.