{"id":399507,"date":"2026-09-14T14:54:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T14:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/399507\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T14:54:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T14:54:48","slug":"trial-set-to-begin-for-plastic-surgeon-accused-of-murdering-pinellas-county-attorney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/399507\/","title":{"rendered":"Trial set to begin for plastic surgeon accused of murdering Pinellas County attorney"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Murder \"Murder <\/p>\n

LARGO, Fla. – The trial for a plastic surgeon who’s accused of murdering a Pinellas County attorney starts on Monday.<\/p>\n

Tomasz Koswski waived his right to a jury trial, so he will have a bench trial where the judge decides the outcome.<\/p>\n

Tomasz Kosowski Pinellas murder trial <\/p>\n

What we know:<\/p>\n

Former plastic surgeon Tomasz Kosowski is charged with first-degree murder in the 2023 death of Pinellas County attorney Steven Cozzi.<\/p>\n

PREVIOUS: Largo attorney murder: Family reaches settlement with owner of property where lawyer was killed<\/a><\/p>\n

Kosowski is expected to represent himself in court after going through several defense attorneys over the last three and a half years. According to court records, he parted ways with his most recent attorney a few months ago.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

If convicted, Kosowski could face the death penalty.<\/p>\n

Kosowski also waived his right to a jury trial for the guilt and penalty phases, meaning the judge will decide the verdict and determine his sentence if he is convicted, instead of a jury.<\/p>\n

Defense strategy and evidence <\/p>\n

What we don’t know:<\/p>\n

It’s not clear what specific evidence Kosowski plans to present while acting as his own attorney during the trial.<\/p>\n

Steven Cozzi law firm disappearance <\/p>\n

The backstory:<\/p>\n

In March 2023, Cozzi disappeared from his law firm in Largo.<\/p>\n

According to court records, at the time, Koswoski was suing his former employer and Cozzi was representing some of the defendants.<\/p>\n

Investigators say Kosowski was volatile and that he hatched a plot to murder Cozzi.<\/p>\n

A week before the disappearance, an employee of a different business allegedly found a man hiding in a utility closet in the shared office building.<\/p>\n

After Cozzi disappeared, police say security footage showed a man wearing gloves and carrying a large box and backpack into the building. He was later seen leaving the building, pulling a cart and appearing to struggle while loading it onto the bed of a truck.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Courtesy: St. Pete Bar Association\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Detectives believe Koswoski then drove to the Everglades and disposed of Cozzi’s body in a dumpster.<\/p>\n

Police also found large amounts of blood in the bathroom of the office building. Investigators discovered the same truck that was seen at the office building, in Kosowski’s garage.<\/p>\n

Verdict and sentencing timeline <\/p>\n

What’s next:<\/p>\n

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Since Kosowski waived the jury trial for the guilt and penalty phases, the judge will decide a verdict and Kosowski’s sentence if he’s convicted.<\/p>\n

The Source: The information in this story was gathered from information provided by investigators in the case, previous FOX 13 News reporting, legal proceedings involving Tomasz Kosowski and Pinellas County court records.<\/p>\n

Pinellas County<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LARGO, Fla. – The trial for a plastic surgeon who’s accused of murdering a Pinellas County attorney starts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[630,47,115,1157,202,204,203,199,201,200,628],"class_list":["post-399507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-fl","tag-news","tag-pinellas","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}