Former Miami surgeon guilty of killing lawyer, judge says. He faces death penalty

A former Miami plastic surgeon was found guilty on Wednesday of murdering a lawyer involved in a bitter lawsuit that the surgeon filed against his former employer.

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Dr. Tomasz Kosowski, 47, was convicted of the first-degree murder of 41-year-old Steven Cozzi, an attorney who vanished from his Pinellas County law office on March 21, 2023. Cozzi’s body has never been found.

Kosowski elected to represent himself and waived his right to a jury trial, opting to have a judge determine his guilt or innocence. Kosowski is facing the death penalty.

During the trial, prosecutors said Kosowski was obsessed with Cozzi — and his fixation drove him to plot the slaying. Cozzi and Kosowski crossed paths in 2019, when the surgeon sued the Tampa Bay-area plastic-surgery center where he once worked. Cozzi represented the center.

“This man methodically and systematically planned out … this murder for months in advance,” prosecutors said in closing arguments. “… The trail led [police] to his house.”

The day of Cozzi’s disappearance, police got a call that Cozzi had left his office but left behind his wallet, keys and cellphone. His car was still parked at the office’s lot, and no one saw him leave.

“During the investigation, there was a strong chemical odor in the men’s bathroom of the office and small drops of blood,” police said. “A subsequent forensics investigation revealed a significant amount of blood in the same bathroom.”

Kosowski, prosecutors theorized, killed Cozzi with succinylcholine, a fast-acting drug that paralyzes muscles, and threw his body in a Collier County dumpster during a drive to Miami. Kosowski had access to the medication through his employment as a plastic surgeon.

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Shortly after Cozzi vanished, Kosowski fell onto police’s radar due to a suspicious person and car spotted at the law office. After hitting his home with a search warrant, police arrested Kosowski. The Miami-Dade and Collier County sheriff’s offices assisted Largo Police with the murder investigation.

During the trial in the Tampa area, prosecutors pointed out that Kosowski repeatedly researched Cozzi and, days before the murder, looked up succinylcholine and its effect on the human body. When police searched the surgeon’s truck, they found a “murder kit” with vials of the drug, syringes, duct tape and a crowbar, among other items.

Life or death?

In court, Cozzi’s husband, Michael Montgomery, detailed how meeting Cozzi in 2018 changed his life — and how losing him has pained him since his disappearance. Cozzi’s parents also delivered victim-impact statements as the judge began to weigh whether Kosowski should be condemned to Florida’s Death Row or spend the rest of his life in prison.

“As painful as those daily reminders are, the most unbearable part is that we were never able to bring Steven home,” Montgomery said in between sniffles. “I cannot describe the horrors this has brought me, and all of Steven’s loved ones.”

After the judge found Kosowski guilty, the surgeon said he did not intend on presenting evidence to spare himself from the death penalty. He also said he didn’t want an attorney to represent him during those proceedings either.

The judge found that Cozzi’s murder was cold, calculated and premeditated and committed for financial gain, which makes Kosowski eligible for the death penalty. The judge said he could not find that the slaying was heinous, atrocious or cruel because it’s unclear exactly how the surgeon killed Cozzi.

A lawyer was appointed — not to represent Kosowski — but to provide the judge with evidence of mitigating circumstances, such as details of a defendant’s background and life history that can reduce the severity of the punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that judges must consider such evidence before issuing a death sentence.

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The judge will determine Kosowski’s sentence following a hearing on Oct. 13.