Did Florida plastic surgeon murder lawyer over bad online review?
· Toronto Sun
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Plastic surgeon Tomasz Kosowski is facing a fate far worse than a botched Brazilian butt lift.
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The Florida doctor faces a one-way ticket to the Sunshine State’s death row if convicted in the murder of a Largo lawyer over a bad online review.
Kosowski’s judge-alone trial kicked off Monday. In addition, the one-time plastic surgeon has opted to represent himself.
Angry over online review
He is charged with first-degree murder in the March 21, 2023 murder of lawyer Steven Cozzi, who vanished from his law office after going to the washroom at Blanchard Law. Co-workers testified on Monday that Cozzi left his phone, keys and wallet at his desk.
At the time of his disappearance, Cozzi had appeared to be in the middle of sending an email.
At the time of the murder, Kosowski was suing his former employer and Cozzi was representing several of the defendants.
‘I was going to grab him by the neck’
The victim’s boss, Jake Blanchard, testified on Monday that the explosive civil case stemmed from a bad online review of the plastic surgeon’s work. Blanchard said a female patient was unhappy with the accused’s work and there was also a billing dispute.
Blanchard and another lawyer, Jake Pillsbury, outlined an explosive deposition at the law office in January 2023.
In the law firm’s bathroom, the perturbed plastic surgeon confronted Cozzi in the bathroom, calling him a scumbag. In the end, Kosowski allegedly vowed he would win.
“I was furious,” Blanchard testified. “I was going to grab him by the neck and throw him out of the office.”
He claimed Cozzi told him to “stop,” saying, “I got this.”
Caught on surveillance
Prosecutors said that the day Cozzi vanished, CCTV shows someone walking into the building carrying a large box just after 8:30 a.m. A little under two hours later, the surveillance video shows a person believed to be Kosowski wheeling out a heavy wagon and attempting to load it onto a truck.
The truck returned to Kosowski’s Tarpon Springs home, cameras revealed.
Before he left the parking lot of the law office, Kosowski called in for a telephone hearing regarding his civil case. His cell phone connects to a cell tower next to the law firm, prosecutors said.
Massive amounts of Cozzi’s blood
Cozzi didn’t call into the meeting.
In the bathroom of the office building, detectives found massive amounts of Cozzi’s blood. More was discovered inside the plastic surgeon’s truck and inside his garage. The accused killer’s blood was also discovered in the office bathroom.
Cops theorized that Kosowski motored south to ditch Cozzi’s corpse. On his way out of town, Cozzi drove past the law firm en route to a Collier County landfill. Over three days in the broiling Florida heat, they failed to find the lawyer’s body.
Next stop death row?
Prosecutors have indicated they will seek the death penalty because of the murder’s planned, cold-blooded and calculating nature. For weeks, Kosowski surveilled Cozzi’s home and took photos of his husband’s car and the law office.
Kosowski was also discovered in the building’s electrical closet a week before the murder.
When detectives arrested Kosowski several days after Cozzi’s disappearance, they discovered $280,000 in cash, a ballistic vest with Cozzi’s blood on it, two passports, brass knuckles, a syringe, a paralyzing agent and more in the car.
He had injuries consistent with a struggle.
Kosowski has gone through a slew of lawyers over the past three and a half years. He has pleaded not guilty.