A forty-one-year-old attorney went to work one spring morning and never walked back out. Steven Cozzi was handling a routine civil lawsuit at his law office in Largo when he vanished without a trace on March 21, 2023. He left his car keys, wallet, and cell phone sitting right on his desk.
For over three years, Cozzi’s family lived in a nightmare of unanswered questions. His parents called and texted every few days, but the quiet phone calls only grew heavier as time passed. His mother and father testified in court that they never heard from their son again after that fateful Tuesday afternoon.
On Wednesday, a judge in Clearwater delivered the verdict that brought a grim closure to the family. Judge Joseph Bulone found former plastic surgeon Tomasz Kosowski guilty of first-degree murder. Even though police never recovered Cozzi’s body, the judge ruled that the evidence proved beyond a doubt that the attorney was killed.
Prosecutors built their entire case around the physical clues left behind in the law firm’s bathroom. Investigators found significant amounts of Cozzi’s blood inside the restroom, pointing to a violent encounter. Surveillance video showed a man wheeling a heavy cart out of the building shortly after Cozzi disappeared.
Crime scene technicians later tracked Cozzi’s blood to Kosowski’s personal pickup truck and his home garage. Prosecutors argued that Kosowski planned the attack out of a bitter obsession over a medical billing lawsuit where Cozzi represented the opposing side. They alleged that Kosowski hauled the body away in the cart and dumped it in a remote landfill.
During the weeklong trial, the courtroom sat in silence as prosecutors laid out the sequence of events. Kosowski represented himself during the proceedings and chose not to call any witnesses or take the stand. He argued that the state could not prove Cozzi died that day and pointed to post-disappearance credit card charges, but the judge rejected those arguments.
With the conviction handed down, the case now moves into the penalty phase where Kosowski faces life in prison or the death penalty. For Cozzi’s loved ones, no courtroom verdict can fill the empty space left in their lives. They are left remembering a dedicated lawyer whose life was cut short far too soon.
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