PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA)\u2014 A murder trial is set to start for a Pinellas County plastic surgeon accused of killing attorney Steven Cozzi, who disappeared in 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t know why someone would hurt somebody as nice as this guy, I mean, this is the nicest guy, the sweetest guy,\u201d said Jake Blanchard, who worked with Cozzi. <\/p>\n
Investigators believe Tomasz Kosowski, a Dunedin plastic surgeon, killed Cozzi in a bathroom at the office and likely disposed of his body in a dumpster in rural Collier County. His remains were never found. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted him and Jake Blanchard to get some kind of on-site security for the next time they meet with this doctor, because I just had a bad feeling that this was escalating,\u201d said Michael Montgomery, who was Cozzi\u2019s husband. <\/p>\n
In 2019, Kosowski sued his former employer, and Cozzi\u2019s firm represented that employer. <\/p>\n
Fast forward to 2023, the two allegedly got into an argument at Cozzi\u2019s office for an unknown reason.<\/p>\n
\u201cKosowski called him \u2018A scumbag like his clients\u2019 in the bathroom,\u201d said Blanchard in court. <\/p>\n
The state has expressed frustration over how long it\u2019s taken to bring this case to trial.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were ready to try this case since April of 2023, Your Honor. The subpoenas were issued last year,\u201d said a state attorney in 2025.<\/p>\n
Kosowski could face the death penalty if convicted. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA)\u2014 A murder trial is set to start for a Pinellas County plastic surgeon accused…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-399711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399711","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=399711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}