Police: Blood, video hyperlink physician to lawyer’s disappearance

Investigators have blood, video and different proof linking a Tampa-area plastic surgeon to the disappearance and presumed loss of life of a lawyer who was representing former colleagues the physician is suing, prosecutors mentioned in court docket paperwork filed Monday.

The lawyer’s physique has but to be discovered, however prosecutors have charged Dr. Tomasz Kosowski with first-degree homicide. He has pleaded not responsible.

Safety video reveals somebody driving Kosowski’s pickup truck final Tuesday morning outdoors the legislation agency the place Steven Cozzi labored. The individual went inside sporting a backpack and gloves and carrying a big field, prosecutors mentioned.

Virtually two hours later, it seems the identical man exits Blanchard Legislation sporting completely different garments, pulling a big cart containing one thing in a bag or coated by a blanket. He struggled with its weight as he pulled it close to the truck, prosecutors mentioned. The person then stops.

At about this time, Kosowski, 44, dialed right into a phone convention about his lawsuit. Cozzi had been anticipated on the decision, however missed it. As quickly because it ended a half hour later, the individual within the surveillance video begins loading the cart into the physician’s truck, once more scuffling with its weight, prosecutors mentioned.

Blanchard Legislation has been representing Kosowski’s former employer and associates in an ongoing lawsuit he filed in opposition to them 4 years in the past. Kosowski, who started working for Laufer Institute of Plastic Surgical procedure in 2016 doing breast reconstructions, says within the lawsuit that the lady Laufer assigned to course of his insurance coverage billing didn’t file claims and lied to his sufferers, costing him tens of hundreds of {dollars} and leading to damaging opinions on-line.

The day Cozzi disappeared, a colleague searching for him found his pockets, keys and telephone in his workplace and a considerable amount of blood within the constructing’s public lavatory.

A couple of half an hour after the truck left the legislation agency, a license plate reader close to the physician’s dwelling confirmed it arriving within the neighborhood and bought a shot of what seems to be a physique coated by a bag or blanket within the truck mattress, prosecutors mentioned.

The license plate reader detected the truck leaving the neighborhood about 5 hours later. It was subsequent seen by a license plate reader in Miami, a 300-mile (480-kilometer) journey that probably would have gone by way of the Everglades.

Police executed a search warrant at Kosowski’s dwelling Thursday and located blood each within the mattress of his pickup mattress and its cabin, in addition to within the storage, prosecutors mentioned. They stopped the physician Saturday in one other automobile and located a ballistic vest with a considerable quantity of blood on it and a bag containing brass knuckles, a stun gun, syringes containing a paralyzing agent and different sedatives, duct tape and masks.

Kosowski, who goes by “Dr. Ok,” was arrested shortly after and charged with first-degree homicide. He’s being held with out bond on the Pinellas County jail. His lawyer, Bjorn Brunvand, mentioned Monday that he has filed a not responsible plea on Kosowski’s behalf and requested a jury trial.

“That is all I can actually say at this level,” Brunvand mentioned in an e-mail.

In his lawsuit in opposition to the Laufer Institute, Kosowsky alleges his “promising younger profession has primarily been obliterated” by the worker who was presupposed to be submitting his insurance coverage claims. “Via no fault of his personal, his profession was put straight in jeopardy and his popularity has been deeply tarnished.”

Kosowski left the Laufer Institute in 2018 and arrange his personal observe.

Phone and e-mail messages in search of remark had been left with Blanchard Legislation and the Laufer Institute.

Cozzi’s mom, Lois Cozzi, issued a press release to Tampa media over the weekend saying, “As a household, we’re frantic with fear and numb with worry over Steven’s disappearance.”