Murder of Steven Cozzi

Steven Cozzi, 41, an associate attorney at Blanchard Law in Largo, Florida, was last seen at about 9:50 a.m. on March 21, 2023, when he entered the men's restroom at the firm's office on South Belcher Road. He did not return to his desk. His wallet, keys and phone were left in the office, and his car remained in the parking lot. Police reported finding a significant amount of blood in the restroom. His body has never been found.

Cozzi was born in Florida in 1981. He worked for seven years as a wardrobe technician on Broadway theater productions before earning a law degree from Stetson University in 2016, and he joined Blanchard Law in 2018. He married his husband in October 2020.

At the time he disappeared, Cozzi was representing the defendants in a civil lawsuit that Tomasz Kosowski, a plastic surgeon, had filed in 2019 against his former employer, the Laufer Institute of Plastic Surgery, and former co-workers over a billing dispute.

Largo police arrested Kosowski, then 44, of Tarpon Springs, on March 25, 2023, and he was charged with first-degree murder and held without bond. Police said surveillance video showed a man arriving at the building that morning in a gray Toyota Tundra with an unregistered tag and later leaving with a large cart, and that masks, duct tape, a Taser and intravenous sedatives were found in his vehicle. In April 2023, Bruce Bartlett, the state attorney for Florida's Sixth Judicial Circuit, announced that his office would seek the death penalty.

In August 2026, Kosowski dismissed his lawyers, was allowed to represent himself and waived his right to a jury. His bench trial before Pinellas Circuit Judge Joseph Bulone began on September 14, 2026. Over six days, prosecutors presented testimony from dozens of witnesses, including Cozzi's husband and colleagues. They introduced evidence that blood matching Cozzi was found in the restroom and in Kosowski's vehicles, and argued that Cozzi's body had been removed in a wagon covered by a red blanket and left in a dumpster near the Tamiami Trail whose contents went to a landfill. Kosowski cross-examined some witnesses but called none and did not testify; in closing, he argued that the state had not proved first-degree murder without a body or a death certificate.

On September 23, 2026, Judge Bulone found Kosowski guilty of first-degree murder. A Spencer hearing, at which final arguments are heard before sentencing, is scheduled for October 8, 2026. Kosowski faces either the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.