NBC 6’s Heather Walker is live from Miami with the latest on a Florida plastic surgeon accused of murdering a lawyer.
A Tampa-area plastic surgeon who's been charged with murder following the disappearance of an attorney may have traveled to Miami-Dade after the lawyer vanished last week, police said Tuesday.
Miami-Dade Police officials said in a statement that their cold case unit is assisting the Largo Police Department in their investigation into the disappearance of attorney Steven Cozzi.
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WATCH HERELargo police arrested Dr. Tomasz Kosowski on a first-degree murder charge on Saturday in the disappearance of Cozzi, who had been representing former colleagues the doctor is suing and was last seen March 21 at Blanchard Law where he worked.
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In their statement, Miami-Dade Police said investigators believe Kosowski and his red Toyota Corolla were in the Miami-Dade area between March 21-26. The car is in police custody in Largo.
Cozzi's body hasn't been found, but prosecutors said in court documents that they have blood, video and other evidence linking Kosowski to Cozzi's killing.
Security video showed someone driving Kosowski's pickup truck the morning of March 21 outside the law firm where Cozzi worked. The person went inside wearing a backpack and gloves and carrying a large box, prosecutors said.
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Almost two hours later, it appears the same man exited Blanchard Law wearing different clothes, pulling a large cart containing something in a bag or covered by a blanket. He struggled with its weight as he pulled it near the truck, prosecutors said. The man then stops.
At about this time, Kosowski, 44, dialed into a telephone conference about his lawsuit. Cozzi had been expected on the call, but missed it. As soon as it ended a half hour later, the person in the surveillance video began loading the cart into the doctor's truck, again struggling with its weight, prosecutors said.
Blanchard Law has been representing Kosowski’s former employer and co-workers in an ongoing lawsuit he filed against them four years ago. Kosowski, who began working for Laufer Institute of Plastic Surgery in 2016 doing breast reconstructions, said in the lawsuit that the woman Laufer assigned to process his insurance billing didn’t file claims and lied to his patients, costing him tens of thousands of dollars and resulting in negative reviews online.
The day Cozzi disappeared, a colleague looking for him discovered his wallet, keys and phone in his office and a large amount of blood in the building’s public bathroom.
About a half an hour after the truck left the law firm, a license plate reader near the doctor's home showed it arriving in the neighborhood and got a shot of what appeared to be a body covered by a bag or blanket in the truck bed, prosecutors said.
The license plate reader detected the truck leaving the neighborhood about five hours later. It was next seen by a license plate reader in Miami, a 300-mile trip that likely would have gone through the Everglades.
Police executed a search warrant at Kosowski's home Thursday and found blood both in the bed of his pickup bed and its cabin, as well as in the garage, prosecutors said. They stopped the doctor Saturday in another vehicle and found a ballistic vest with a substantial amount of blood on it and a bag containing brass knuckles, a stun gun, syringes containing a paralyzing agent and other sedatives, duct tape and masks.
Kosowski, who goes by "Dr. K," was arrested shortly after and was being held without bond at the Pinellas County jail. His attorney, Bjorn Brunvand, said Monday that he has filed a not guilty plea on Kosowski's behalf and requested a jury trial.
Miami-Dade Police are asking anyone who may have come in contact with Kosowski and/or his Corolla with Florida tag EMFK38 between March 21-26 to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS.
