Tomasz Kosowski, 47, was found guilty of first-degree murder Wednesday after insisting on representing himself at his death penalty trial in Florida.
The Ivy League-educated plastic surgeon, known as “Dr. K,” was convicted of killing attorney Steven Cozzi, 41, in the bathroom of Cozzi’s Clearwater office in March 2023. Prosecutors argued the murder was “cold, calculated and premeditated,” carried out for financial gain amid a medical billing dispute between the two men.
Pinellas County Judge Joseph Bulone delivered the verdict himself rather than empaneling a jury, then retreated to consider arguments in the penalty phase. “I don’t anticipate me disagreeing with myself that much,” the judge quipped before the break. “So we’ll take a 15-minute break and I’ll be back.”
Kosowski had called Cozzi a “scumbag” just months before the killing, prosecutors noted. They also presented evidence that he researched his victim online and assembled what they termed a “murder bag” containing a Taser, brass knuckles and a crowbar. He had looked up the paralyzing drug succinylcholine, including questions about its duration.
Cozzi’s blood was found in the bathroom and in spatters inside Kosowski’s car afterward. “The overwhelming totality of the evidence in this case demonstrates that he had the obsession, and he prepared, and he had a plan, and he effectuated that plan, and murdered him,” Assistant State Attorney Nathan Vonderheide said, advocating for the death penalty.
“This man murdered Steven Cozzi and he murdered him in a violent way, leaving his blood in a multitude of locations.”
Cozzi’s body has never been found despite extensive searches, and investigators suspect his remains were placed in a dumpster near a highway before transfer to a landfill. Bulone noted this gap prevents proving the killing was heinous — one aggravating factor for death sentencing — but the penalty remains possible since only one such factor must be proven beyond reasonable doubt.
Before the ruling, Cozzi’s family described their enduring anguish. “The most unbearable part is that we were never able to bring Steven home,” his husband Michael Montgomery testified. “I cannot describe the horrors this has brought me, and all of Steven’s loved ones. It brings me more anger than I can put in words.”
Kosowski attempted to distance himself from the crime during his own defense, despite investigators finding a mix of his and Cozzi’s DNA outside the bathroom door. “It is entirely uncertain of what happened to Steven Cozzi in that bathroom,” he claimed. “No one heard a thing. No one saw anything. I also do not leave a speck of DNA in that bathroom.”
He also challenged the physical evidence of disposal. A man was seen entering Cozzi’s law office at 8:30 a.m. On the day Cozzi was last seen; roughly two hours later, a man wheeled a heavy wagon from the building and struggled to load it onto a gray Toyota Tundra truck. “It is physically impossible to transfer a body in the manner that the state suggests,” Kosowski argued, denying one man could move someone weighing 190 to 195 pounds alone.
“The wheelbase of that Gorilla Cart is much, much shorter than the height of the tailgate of that truck,” he continued. “You take that full weight, that 200 pounds in a big and bulky cart. You take that, you lift it up straight in front of you and you get it onto that truck. That’s physically impossible. I mean, maybe not for, like, an Olympic-caliber deadlifter.”
The Dartmouth College graduate’s self-representation failed to sway the court, with Bulone returning to deliver guilt in the time he had predicted. Kosowski’s next hearing is scheduled for October 8.