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Tomasz Kosowski murder trial continues
It's been three and a half years since Largo Attorney Steven Cozzi walked into his office bathroom and vanished. Former plastic surgeon Dr. Tomasz Kosowski is now on trial for the murder case. FOX 13's Kailey Tracy reports.
LARGO, Fla. - Tuesday, several law enforcement officers embedded in the investigation testified in the trial for a former plastic surgeon who's accused of murdering a Pinellas County attorney.
Former surgeon on trial
What we know:
Tomasz Kosowski waived his right to a jury trial, so he's in the middle of a bench trial where the judge decides his fate. He also decided to represent himself in court.
Kosowski is charged with first-degree murder in the 2023 death of Largo attorney Steven Cozzi.
Look back at the case
The backstory:
In March 2023, Cozzi went to the bathroom in the Blanchard Law office where he worked and never returned. His co-workers testified Monday that he left his phone, keys and wallet at his desk and appeared to be in the middle of an email. His husband said Monday that Cozzi rarely strayed from his routine.
According to court records, at the time, Kosowski was locked in a bitter legal battle with his former employer and was suing them. Cozzi was representing some of the defendants. Witnesses Monday testified Kosowski was often aggressive towards Cozzi, and tried to have him removed from the civil case.
On March 21, 2023, the day Cozzi disappeared, surveillance video shows someone walking into the building carrying a large box just after 8:30 a.m., prosecutors said. Around 10:22 a.m., surveillance video shows someone who appears to be Kosowski, prosecutors said, wheeling out a heavy wagon and struggling to pull it to a truck. That truck then returns to Kosowski’s Tarpon Springs home, Flock cameras and neighbors’ surveillance cameras show. Investigators found the truck in his garage.
Video evidence in court
Dig deeper:
Tuesday, detectives testified license plate readers and PSTA bus cameras also helped them track the Toyota Tundra. According to Detective Jerry Hunt with Largo Police, who was on the stand for almost an hour and a half, those cameras show the truck with a wagon in the back of the truck carrying what Hunt described as what looks like a body covered in a blanket. Prosecutors showed surveillance video and screenshots as he detailed the pictures.
Prosecutors also played video in court Tuesday from the back of a police cruiser taken right after Kosowski was detained. Officers had a warrant to collect Kosowski’s DNA and analyze his fingernail clippings.
In the video, Kosowski manages to maneuver his cuffed hands from behind his back to in front of himself. Detective Hunt says Kosowski then started sucking on his fingers, trying to destroy all evidence after finding out about the body warrant. As Kosowski watched the video in court, he smiled at times. Cozzi’s family and friends, understandably, appeared visibly upset.
Other evidence explained
Big picture view:
When officers arrested Kosowski a few days after Cozzi’s disappearance, they found $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 red Toyota Corolla.
Officers also testified Tuesday that there was an overwhelming smell of bleach coming from the bathroom and that there was blood throughout the bathroom. Investigators found large amounts of Cozzi’s blood in the bathroom of the office building and inside the truck. Kosowski’s blood was also in the bathroom, investigators say.
Officer Jennifer Bure with the Largo Police Department was the first responding officer to the law firm when Cozzi was reported missing. She noted the extremely strong smell of bleach in the bathroom, said it was a mess, noticed blood throughout the bathroom and a stain on the wall that hadn’t been there before, other employees told her. It appeared to be paint that looked like it was scrubbed off, she and other witnesses said.
Bure also noted Cozzi’s keys, wallet and phone were still on his desk.
Testimony in court
What they're saying:
"This isn’t someone who just walked away to smoke a cigarette outside the property and, again, my thought process at the time was, ‘I don’t really know what I have, but I need to have people stay out of this room,’" she said.
Kosowski’s phone pinged at the law office when Cozzi disappeared, then at a dumpster in Collier County.
Detectives believe Kosowski drove south to dispose of Cozzi’s body, but prosecutors say he passed by the law firm on the way out of town. By the time investigators tracked the landfill where the dumpster in Collier County was dumped, it was about a week later. They never found Cozzi’s body.
Detective Lance Wagoner with the Largo Police Department testified Tuesday he was one of the law enforcement officers who searched that landfill from sun up to sun down for several days.
"It was mountains of garbage that had been compacted down over days," Wagoner said.
He said bulldozers would move mounds for them to sift through. Wagoner said every time a garbage truck came into the landfill, though, the trash piles got compacted down multiple feet. He said that made it very difficult to find anything there.
Detective Wagoner also testified Kosowski used Amazon to buy two carts, identical to the one on surveillance video leaving the law firm, along with five rolls of heavy-duty duct tape, months before the murder.
Defendant wins argument
The other side:
While Kosowski hasn’t spoken much and hasn’t questioned any of the 28 witnesses so far, he did ask the judge to suppress evidence, something he has done before. He asked this first thing Tuesday morning, and objected to evidence being entered into the record throughout the day. The judge overruled those objections.
"Subject to our continuing objection is the search of my residence and the items seized from within, the search of my vehicle and the items seized within, including cellular telephones and the digital evidence derived from therein, including financial transactions and shopping history and evidence derived my person, as well as every piece of evidence submitted yesterday and any mention of a truck," Kosowski said.
Kosowski did win one argument in court. He objected to a media microphone placed in front of him, saying he didn’t want anything heard when he talked to himself about the case. The judge had it removed.
Kosowski has pleaded not guilty.
Trial continues this week
What's next:
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Since Kosowski waived a jury trial, the judge will decide a verdict. Court resumes at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday. The state said it hopes to rest its case by next Tuesday.
The Source: The information in this story was gathered from information provided by investigators in the case, previous FOX 13 News reporting, legal proceedings involving Tomasz Kosowski and Pinellas County court records.