Yahoo Movies Florida Plastic Surgeon Accused of Murdering Lawyer Had Sedatives, Duct Tape in Car, Cops Say
The Florida plastic surgeon accused of murdering an attorney who went missing at his law office during a bathroom break had a bloody ballistic vest, masks, “intravenous” sedatives, brass knuckles, duct tape, and a taser inside his car when he was pulled over by authorities on Saturday, police said.
The damning new claims emerged in an arrest affidavit obtained by the Tampa Bay Times on Monday, nearly a week after 41-year-old Steven Cozzi mysteriously vanished from his Largo, Florida, law office.
Authorities say Cozzi’s body remains missing, but there was enough evidence—like security camera footage, fingerprints, and blood splattered throughout the bathroom near the lawyer’s office—for them to charge 44-year-old plastic surgeon Tomasz Roman Kosowski with his murder. Cozzi was allegedly killed while he was representing several of the doctor’s former patients in a lawsuit Kosowski had brought against them.
The suspected slaughter happened Tuesday morning, sometime before a telephone hearing was slated to include appearances by Cozzi and Kosowski at 10:30 a.m.
Florida Plastic Surgeon Accused of Killing Lawyer Who Vanished on Bathroom Break
Cops say Kosowski still tuned into the hearing—part of the lawsuit he filed against the former patients, claiming they soured his good name in a flurry of negative reviews—but Cozzi never showed up.
An investigation revealed that Cozzi was missing but his wallet, car keys, and cellphone had been left on his desk. The bathroom near his office had blood on the door, in a stall, and at the bottom of the toilet, Kosowski’s arrest affidavit said.
Eerie security footage also caused investigators to suspect foul play. The affidavit says an unnamed man was captured entering Cozzi’s law office about five minutes before he did Tuesday morning, wearing a backpack, gloves, and carrying a large box, the Times reported.
Two hours later, a “man with a similar build” to the gloved man was captured leaving Cozzi’s office with a large cart that had “what appeared to be a red bag or blanket.”
The man, who was wearing the same backpack but had changed his clothes, was allegedly seen “struggling” with the weight of the cart as he tried to load it into the bed of a Toyota Tundra pickup truck. Cops said this struggle happened just minutes after Kosowski had finished his virtual hearing.
The Tundra, which cops said was purchased in October but never registered, was then driven to Kosowski’s home in the nearby city of Tarpon Springs, the Times reported. A camera captured the truck’s license plate and a photo of its bed, which allegedly appeared to “contain a human body” inside a red bag or blanket.
Security footage from Cozzi’s office never captured him leaving, cops said. A search there allegedly uncovered fingerprints that belonged to Kosowski in the building’s breaker room, which isn’t normally accessed by the public, the Times reported.
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Police said they also uncovered “white fibers” in Kosowski’s Tundra and in the bathroom, where “a large quantity of blood” had been cleaned up, according to an analysis by forensics experts.
The plethora of evidence led cops to pull over Kosowski on Saturday as he drove a Toyota Corolla in Pinellas County, the Times reported. A search was conducted at the scene, which allegedly uncovered the bloody ballistic vest and other alarming items inside a bag, like the “intravenous” sedatives that included the paralyzing agent succinylcholine.
Kosowski, a Dartmouth graduate who specialized in breast reconstruction, was booked into the Pinellas County Jail the following day on a charge of first-degree murder.
Cozzi, who’d been an associate attorney at Blanchard Law since 2018, was a graduate of the Stetson University College of Law. His husband, Michael Montgomery, posted to Facebook on Sunday night, “We are going to get Justice.”
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