CLEARWATER, Fla. (Court TV) — A plastic surgeon representing himself on charges he murdered an attorney failed to convince a judge to allow volunteers for a courtroom demonstration.
Tomasz Kosowski points in court on Sept. 22, 2026. (Court TV)
Tomasz Kosowski, 47, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder in the death of Steven Cozzi, 41, who disappeared in March 2023. Cozzi was representing a group of people being sued by Kosowski at the time of his disappearance; prosecutors say Kosowski, angry and frustrated over the lawsuit, killed the victim in a bathroom at Cozzi’s law firm. Kosowski, a Dartmouth Medical School graduate, is representing himself at trial and has waived his right to a jury, meaning Judge Joseph Bulone will decide his fate.
Prosecutors have presented forensic, digital and circumstantial evidence connecting Kosowski to Cozzi’s disappearance, including Kosowski’s DNA found in the law firm’s bathroom, Cozzi’s DNA found in Kosowski’s vehicle and surveillance video showing Kosowski’s vehicle driving from the law office back to his home when the attorney disappeared.
“Did I act alone in the perpetuation of this crime?” Kosowski asked Largo police officer Colin Bolton during cross-examination on Tuesday. “Based on all the evidence I’ve seen, it appears that way,” Bolton answered.
During Tuesday’s cross-examination, Kosowski focused on what prosecutors said he did: kill the victim in the bathroom, then load the body into a Gorilla Cart that he wheeled to his truck. Then, prosecutors said, Kosowski eventually moved the body to a second car, drove it to a dumpster and disposed of it. Despite extensive search efforts, Cozzi’s remains have never been found.
“How did I get that Gorilla Cart onto the truck?” Kosowski asked. “From what I recall, [Cozzi] weighed about 190 pounds,” Bolton said. “It’s a movable amount of weight. It can be lifted. It was in a wagon. But that’s an amount of weight that can be picked up and put in the bed of a truck.”
Kosowski: “Are you physically fit?”
Bolton: “I would think so.”
Kosowski: “Do you exercise?”
Bolton: “I do.”
Kosowski: “Do you lift weights?”
Bolton: “I do.”
Kosowski: “OK, would you be willing to help in a demonstration?”
Bolton: “Yeah, I could. Sure.”
Kosowski pointed at a desk in the room and said it measured 30 inches high—close to his Tundra’s 28 inches. “I would say that’s a pretty good analog, maybe a little bit less, of the height that somebody would have to lift a person to load it onto the Toyota tailgate,” Kosowski said. “Now, we have a Gorilla Cart in evidence right now. What I propose we do is that we take that Gorilla Cart, we ask for a volunteer that’s approximately 190, 195 pounds to get into that Gorilla Cart. And I would like you to lift that Gorilla Cart with that person onto the desk.”
Prosecutors say Tomasz Kosowski is visible on surveillance video dragging a wagon away from Steven Cozzi’s office. (Court TV)
Prosecutors objected to the proposed demonstration; Bulone sustained it, saying that Kosowski had made his point. But the defendant wasn’t done. “He’s telling you,” Kosowski said, pointing at Bolton, “that I committed the murder, and he’s trying to kill me for it,” he added, pointing to the prosecution team. “That is their theory. The least they have to do now is show me that this is plausible. Now, because of my career, I know what it’s like to transfer 195-pound people all the time because I transfer people from … OR tables to gurneys all the time, all right? If your theory is real, you should have no problem lifting that cart up with a 195-pound person onto that desk.”
Bulone again denied Kosowski’s request but said he would consider the defendant’s argument.
Kosowski previously requested a different demonstration, asking prosecutor Nathan Vonderheide to step into a 39-gallon trash bag to prove that it could hold a body. While Vonderheide declined to do so in the courtroom, he said Tuesday that his cocounsel, Alexandra Spadaro, had successfully tested whether she would fit into the bag and promised that the state’s last witness would be testifying to that fact.
