A Deadly Obsession: The Murder Trial of Dr. Kosowski

I would say that the criminal act that the state accuses me of perpetuating is physically impossible. It is physically impossible to transfer a body in the manner the state suggests. Take into account what they're proposing. You take that full weight, there are 200 pounds, a big and bulky cart. You take that, you lift it up straight in front of you and you get it on to that truck. That's physically impossible. I mean, maybe not for like an Olympic caliper dead lifter. And Mr. Bonderhite knows this very very well. And that is why he refused to lift up that cart yesterday. That was former Florida plastic surgeon, Dr. Tomasz Kuzalski, representing himself in court after being charged with a murder of 41-year-old attorney, Stephen Cawsey. Despite his arguments and he made some good ones during a six-day trial, Dr. Kuzalski age 47 was found guilty of first-degree murder on September 23rd. The doctor who now faces the possibility of the death sentence not only represented himself in court, but he waived his right to a jury. So instead asking for a bench trial. So he's leaving it up to a single judge alone to decide his fate whether he'll live or whether he'll die. To understand how this case came about, you do need some history. The two men met because of a legal conflict. Dr. Kuzalski had sued his former employer, the Law for Institute of Plastic Surgery, and some of the people associated with the institute, over a negative online review and a medical billing dispute. Stephen Cawsey just happened to be the lawyer for the defendants for the other side. But things apparently got so heated between the two men that in January of 2023 during a deposition, Kuzalski confronted Cawsey in his law office's bathroom. Calling him a scumbag. And that matters because it was in that same bathroom three months later that authorities believe that Dr. Kuzalski came back in and killed Stephen Cawsey. He was then arrested a few days later in a traffic stop with $280,000 in cash, brass knuckles, a paralyzing agent of medication, and a ballistic vest that was stained with Kuzalski's blood. Here's the important part for this case. Kuzalski's body has never been found. I'm 48 hours correspondent, Aaron Moriarty. And this is case by case. Returning to the show today is 48 hours consultant, Herman Weissberg. Herman is a private investigator, former NYPD detective. And he's also the managing director of Sage Intelligence Group where he oversees investigations. Thank you, Herman, for being back with case by case today. Thanks for having me, Aaron. I'm honored to be working with you. I'm a big fan. And yes, this is a heck of a case. Herman, I first have to ask you your impressions of Dr. Kuzalski in court. You have seen individuals represent themselves. I think he's a little different. He's incredibly educated. He seems sometimes even smug. I mean, do you think he was really prepared for what he did defending himself in a death penalty case? Not at all. He was, to me, I was transfixed watching this. He looked like a deer in the headlights half the time. I don't know what he was thinking representing himself. The old expression comes to mind, you know, a fool for a client. But I would seriously rather see a lawyer perform surgery on himself than to watch this surgeon practice law or what he thought was practicing law. He didn't do himself any justice literally. Well, what troubled me, why keep calling this troubling case is that there are a lot of people in this country who dislike lawyers, but this seemed to go beyond that. This was an obsession for this plastic surgeon, but there did seem to be some warning signs. As you know, Kuzzi's husband, Michael Montgomery, had actually feared for Kuzzi safety. He bought Kuzzi pepper spray, and he testified that he fixed their home security system. And I think it was a smart move, because a week before Kuzzi disappeared, Kuzzi was found that a business near his law office, and he was hiding in electrical closet with a torch lighter and a wagon, what's called a guerrilla wagon, identical to the one that investigators believe he later used to transport Kuzzi's body. So it seems like everyone should have known that Kuzalski was a threat. You think it's just that people didn't realize how far he would go. For the husband to react by improving their security system and getting the mace and taking those steps, I really do think that Kuzzi was concerned about it, but not to this extent. Have you ever seen grudges play out quite like this in all your years as a detective? Not like this one. I think this doctor, they often, you've heard the expression God complex. I think he was not used to losing at all or ever being wrong, and this got to him, and then he got fixated on it. This is a man that clearly snapped. I've seen a lot of litigation get out of control. I've seen really messy divorces. I've seen business breakups, grudges get held, and the lawyer sometimes take the brunt of it, but not to this extent. This is really one really bizarre and extreme case to me. It definitely seems like that. What kind of sticks out though about Kuzalski is that he had no criminal history, right? Why risk all of this? I think something really, really big was going on, and the disadvantage here is that he represented himself. He didn't have an attorney to step in and make those evaluations for him. I have to say, what's really important in this case is the fact that it's a nobody case. The fact that you have nobody, you don't have a cause of death, you don't have a weapon, make the circumstantial evidence in this case, that much more significant, right? What they know is that Stephen Cossie disappeared, literally disappeared from his office on March 21st, 2023. He went to the bathroom. He left an email unwritten, left his phone behind, but then he's never seen again. Can you talk about some of the evidence that then led investigators to look at Dr. Kuzalski? As we all know, the first 48 hours are extremely crucial in these cases. I think the police did an appropriate job here. They definitely pounced on this, and they got right into preservation and collection of evidence in the video, which is unusual. These nobody cases, they usually take a long time. It starts out as a missing person, and then it proceeds to be a homicide investigation. In this case, I think they were looking right away as a possible abduction and assault or homicide. Well, yeah, because I think Kuzalski made an error by being found a week before. You believe then that the circumstantial evidence is very powerful in this case. Very, very powerful. The stalking, the confrontation, I don't know. Kuzzi went back and obviously told his husband that he was concerned about this. You've got that. You've got probably a limited amount of people that were looking to harm Kuzzi. He's an attorney doing civil work, civil litigation. This is not somebody that's going around making enemies as far as I'm concerned, or as far as I know, 10/22 that morning surveillance video outside that law office shows someone who really appears to be Kuzalski, wheeling out a heavy wagon and then struggling to put it in a truck. It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes level investigator to figure out something's happened and that he's either been abducted or murdered. Right. I mean, it was clear that Kuzalski was going to be a suspect. I still find it shocking that he was kidnapped in broad daylight basically in the morning in his office when he goes to the bathroom. Prosecutors still had to convince the trial of fact who happens to be a judge in this case, how he got into the law firm and got cosy out without anyone seeing him and how he did it on his own. At the top of this episode, we did here Kuzalski in court asking the assistant state attorney Nathan Vanderhide to do a demonstration and I think he was trying to prove that he himself was not strong enough to have maneuvered the cart himself with a body on it. The judge did ultimately deny that request for a demonstration, but I did think that Kuzalski made a point. that it is what the state is saying he did does seem like it would be difficult. Difficult, but not impossible in my view. I think the prosecutor avoided a trap there because the way Kuzowski described it, it was basically picking up with your two arms, a 200 pound block and anybody that's ever struggled with a two larger box or two heavier box outside of a home depot or a television store knows that there's ways to maneuver boxes and carts into a car with a little bit of leverage you get up underneath it, you lean it against the car, there are ways to do that but this prosecutor was smart enough and the judge didn't allow it and the way it was presented by Kuzowski to have him try to pick up something that would have definitely thrown the prosecutor's back at it. I know it would do it to mine. There was a lot of other circumstantial evidence against Kuzowski, including these flock cameras that showed that the truck that you see on video returned to Kuzowski's home in Tarpen Springs on that very night that Kazy disappeared and then four days later Dr. Kuzowski was pulled over, he was driving a different vehicle at Toyota Corolla and the cops had a search warrant so they had clearly been focusing on him and inside his car, which I kind of mentioned but investigators found what they call a murder bag in this car with some really creepy contents. Can you talk about that a little bit? This reminds me of a cop show or detective show in the '70s. I'd probably turn the channel if I saw somebody carrying a bag like this but they found cash $280,000 which is an unusual amount of money for anyone to be carrying unless you're planning on going away. They found brass knuckles, a paralyzing agent, a ballistic vest which had Kazy's blood on it, a ton of incriminating items, a guy fox mask in the bag, those scary masks they've seen in the movies. One of the police officers noted that he was playing the Beatles song "Free as a Bird" on his car play as he was being arrested and the detectives found blood in the law firm's bathroom, the truck, Kuzowski's car, his garage floor. They also found Kuzowski this is important as US and Polish passports were in the car. This was really an investigator's dream. It was like if an investigator got to write the script on this, what he would be looking for in a car of somebody that was suspected of doing a crime like this. There's something else that I found really interesting about that arrest. There is a video and he is in the back of the squad car. You actually see it first, his hands are behind his back but then he does this really strange move so that he can bring his hands in front. And then he starts like, I don't know how else to put it. He's sucking on his fingernails, almost nine on his fingers. What did you think was going on with this? I have seen a lot of people being able to put handcuffs, rear cuffed people being able to put them in front of them. It's not easy at all. It takes a lot of effort. So he was really, really insisting on getting his hands and his fingers in his mouth. This could be read as a last ditch effort to get rid of some of the evidence. He knows that there's either blood or skin cells under his nails. That's my theory. If somebody has an alternative theory that they want to put in the comments, I'd be interested in hearing it because I don't think that's a nervous tick or that he was biting his nails or anything like that. You're going through a really a lot of effort and I'd have to think that the doctor thought that there was some evidence on his on his fingers. I have to agree with you. That's how I read it. This case also contains some very strange disturbing details that we have kind of alluded to. As you know, investigators found that paralyzing agent in Kuzalski's car of medication and that they found that Kuzalski had researched how long the medication lasts. I assume you have a feeling of why we don't have the body. We don't know if he used it against COSI. Why do you think he would have that with him? The paralytic that they found in the syringe is called succinocoline. It's a muscle relaxant often used as an anesthetic during surgical procedure. It makes sense that Kuzalski would have access to it and have knowledge of it. Surprisingly, I had to look up what the effects were. We know it can be lethal at the right dose. It can be used so a victim can't fight back, but can still aware of what's happening to them. That's horrifying. You know, you're basically in a paralytic state. That's what the prosecution argued anyway. Has that ever come up in any cases that you've handled in the past? Not this specific drug, but I have seen, I've had a lot of experience with cases with knockout drugs, Rohipnol or Rufi's, you know, I was lucky enough to be involved in a 48 hours episode about an attempted murder cheesecake case that was a drug called Phenazapam. I mean, I think that when I read that, that was one of the most cruel details. The idea that a person, I mean, if, in fact, and he was convicted, he didn't just want him flick pain on him. He wanted, he wanted Stephen Cossey to know it was happening and not be able to fight back. I can't think of anything worse than that. Now, as we've already mentioned, there is nobody in this case. They've not been able to find Stephen Cossey, but there was blood. There were traces of blood found at Kuzalski's home and in his vehicles. The prosecution of trial called a blood pattern expert to the stand. Why would that be important in this case? So I've been involved in murder cases and I've seen, what it's known as, in police department, anyways, blood spatter experts. They reconstruct crime scenes. It's an art and a science as far as I'm concerned. But they can show, it's used often in Blunt Trauma assault and murder cases, stabbing cases and other situations like that, because they can recreate or reconstruct the crime scene and you can see, they can, they can illustrate what position of victim was in, where the attacker was, which hand he was using. So it's fascinating to watch these people work and I've seen it before at crime scenes. It's necessary in a case like this because you don't, like you mentioned before, Aaron, you don't have a cause of death. You don't have a weapon and the crime scene is basically what you're working with here to prove your case. Well, yeah. So you've got this problem. The prosecution has this problem that they have nobody, but they believe that Kuzalski disposed of Stephen Cossey's body at a dumpster in Collier County, Florida. Again, this was just circumstantial evidence to support it, but they had George Belanti, who was the garbage truck driver, who emptied this dumpster on March 23rd, 2023, two days after Stephen Cossey disappeared. And here's a recap of what he went through and it comes from the prosecution's closing argument. I think George Belanti's testimony and I'm sorry that the cause is, and I'm sorry that Michael had to hear this, but the way he described it was (bleep) file that the owner was so bad, it's consistent with decomposition, the way it falls. I mean, how important is this type of evidence, which is smell evidence? I think it's good evidence when you have somebody who's around garbage all day with the, well, to respect this man, you know, who's an experienced garbage truck driver. He's used to smells and he's used to smells that, you know, that resonate with him. And I really do think, when you get a witness like this, it would have had a big impact on a jury, but I'm sure it got to the judge, too, a judge understands that a guy who's surrounded by foul smelling stuff all day, if something sticks out to him, that's definitely something that you want to introduce as evidence. You know, there's also a canine that trained to detect human remains alerted to this dumpster. I watched the called cadaver dogs, I watched them during the recovery efforts at the Trade Center. Amazing. I mean, they can, you know, there's rescue dogs that find living people and then there's cadaver dogs and they pick up a scent and they don't give up. It's incredible. They can pick up that scent. Reportedly, years later, so it's pretty interesting. As Volante testified, the dumpster had already been emptied and compacted. They were able to trace the contents of, you know, to a landfill in Collier County and they searched for three days, but they still couldn't find anybody. So they were able to prove Kazowski's guilt because his phone data was traced to that dumpster. And that's really, really important. There's no way to explain why you happen to be at a dumpster and all of these other circumstances. You know, again, I use the term exclusive opportunity here. His license plate was also captured in that area, which even just really nails in a coffin there. by this overwhelming evidence, circumstantial evidence, albeit, against him. Kazalskiy chose to represent himself in court, and he decided he did not want a jury. He just wanted a judge. And that part really surprises me because at least with a jury, and he had to be thinking at this, you have a chance that one person will have reasonable doubt. That's what it seemed like, Kazalskiy was going for, and one person out at 12 might. So that was odd, and it also was odd to me that, even though he is representing himself, he didn't put on much of a defense. He didn't, didn't call any witnesses to the stand. I just want to play some of, some of what the judge said, confirming this as Kazalskiy rested his case. - I'm not going to call any witnesses, right? Are you not going to call any witnesses? You're not going to present any evidence, and you're not going to testify yourself, correct? - No, I presented evidence for any of the kids. - Well, on cross-examination, you did, yeah. What are you talking about, the transcript? - No, the defense exhibit one. - It was a photograph. The one of those photographs. It's in a one-seat picture. - All right. All right, but you're not going to introduce any further evidence, right? - That's correct. - So basically you're right, okay? - Okay, Hermann, I'm going to agree with you. I mean, he really didn't know what he was doing, but it also struck me when I watched him, because I hate this that the defendant gets so much play a trial, not the victim, but I couldn't take my eyes off Kazalski. He seemed so emotionless, but he's facing the death penalty. It was almost as he watched him that, I mean, there was a smugness to his face too, like he was playing a game. But I think it's important to know that Kazalski didn't start off representing himself. He did have attorneys at one point, and they filed motions on his behalf to fight the death penalty. And then afterwards, Kazalski withdrew those. And most important, I think to you, is that Kazalski also refused to comply with a psychological evaluation. - Yeah, I would have loved to have seen that, that psych evaluation. Even on TV and watching this, knowing what I know now, he had those, I call them shark eyes, you know, just like that weird, distant look in his eyes, like there's something, something that's definitely, obviously, something off there, but it really stood out to me when I watched, you know, the few times that the camera really focused in on him. This was, I've never seen anything like this before. - I have to grab not either. I do think some of the more compelling moments are when Dr. Kazalski tried to physically demonstrate his points 'cause he's trying to raise reasonable doubt. You know, as you know, at the top of the episode, we have that clip of Dr. Kazalski in his closing statement, recounting his attempt to have the chief medical examiner who was testifying to get into a card so that the prosecutor would have to lift it onto a nearby table with a man in the card. The judge rejected that. And then later, Kazalski asked the exact same medical examiner to get physically into a black trash bag. The judge denied that as well. You know, I thought he made a point but do you think these demonstrations would have helped the case? - I was a little surprised that the prosecution didn't offer testimony from something called a kinesiologist that somebody who studies the human body movements and they understand how muscles and nerves and bones work together to do physical activity. If he had a lawyer, he could have introduced demonstrations. That's not the proper way to do that. You can't just, you know, have hazardly instruct people that are testifying to do 100 pushups or anything like that either. It's just the judge, I think I'm not an attorney, was correct in not allowing that. But if Kazalski had proper legal advice or a legal counsel, they may have been able to introduce something to prove or disprove that a human would have been capable of doing that. It's just he didn't representing yourself. That's one of the pitfalls here. He just didn't properly do that. And the prosecution could have had their own experts to do that, it would have never worked in any court of law the way this man was trying to do it. - Let's talk a little bit about the defendant. I hate putting the emphasis on the defendant, but what's surprising about this case honestly is that Kazalski is a very educated man. Obviously not in the law, but he has several advanced degrees including he got his medical degree from Dartmouth. And whether he decided to represent himself came because he was arrogant or otherwise, I don't think we'll really know or maybe he just was giving up. But before this happened, yeah, a lot of friends, they said he was known as Dr. Tampa Bay when he worked at the Law for Institute of Plastic Surgery in Clearwater. And this whole thing started because he was defending his reputation. So it just seemed so hard to understand how he could end up in this situation. - And it really, some of it's explained in the complaint where Kasi and him were first introduced, in the litigation that was going on. And I wanna read the quote there 'cause it's interesting to me. It was, it is important to really understand how negative reviews and negative allegations can have a huge impact on a career. It goes on to say quote, in this day and age a positive online reputation is key in securing medical services as everybody first Googles practitioners from which they will be getting medical services from end quote. So the doctor was probably fixated on reading reviews about himself. Again, I have to bring in that God complex type of situation that you've heard so many times associated with some surgeons, but his civil suit was an indication that he was going to get some pretty, this is worse than any kind of negative review that you could probably try to get rid of on Google. This was going to be on the record here. So, Kasi's keep definitely, he thought that this was the end of the world. And obviously it isn't said that this happened, but that's what I mean about somebody snapping. I almost think that's the only explanation because it's the part I don't understand. Why would anyone who clearly cared about his career and his image so much risk at all, throw it all away by killing the lawyer on the other side, it makes no sense. And again, I don't understand why he didn't want to argue his case to a jury, because after he and the prosecution delivered their closing arguments, we have this one judge who's making a decision about whether guilt or innocence and it only took that judge 15 minutes to reach a verdict. Here is the verdict. - In the state of Florida, first Thomas Cosaspe case number 23, zero, two, nine, three, five, see a verdict. The court, as a trial or fact, having considered testimony and evidence presented at trial, the exhibits admitted into evidence and the apical law hereby enters a following verdict. The defendant is guilty of murder in the first degree as charged. This verdict is rendered in open court just 23rd day of September, 2026, signed by Honorable Judge Joseph A. Salone, Circuit Judge. - All right, thank you. All right, state, are you still seeking a sentence of death in this case? - Yes, ma'am. - Herman, I know there was just one judge making this decision, but we are talking about a death penalty case. I mean, have you ever seen such a short period of time to deliberate for such a important sentence? - Some of it makes sense that it was quick because the judges taking contemporaneous notes while the evidence is being presented. He doesn't have anyone to deliberate with. There's not one hold out juror that wants to ask some questions, which they're entitled to do and they should do. This is a judge that was probably sitting there saying to himself, the prosecution has given me enough that there's extremely convincing evidence here and because I asked he didn't do himself any favors by not having a juror out there that may have said, oh, maybe you can't get somebody into that box or maybe somebody couldn't get into that bag. - Now, I had been surprised initially until I really looked at this case why it was a death penalty case. According to the state, they argued that Kazazki should be put to death number one because he committed this murder for financial reasons. But also because the act itself, which we have discussed during this podcast, was just so cold and calculated. Kazazki has said he's not gonna fight the death penalty and he's not planning on presenting any evidence to the judge to explain why he shouldn't be put to death. But I think to be The judge did appoint special counsel who will argue to try to save Dr. Kizalski's life. We will find out what happens when the judge decides life or death at the residency in hearing on October 8th. Now after that verdict was announced, even Kazi's friends and family finally got to talk about him and they delivered their victim impact statements and I want to play some of these. I want to start first with Stephen's husband Michael Montgomery. The most unbearable part is that we were never able to bring Stephen home. I cannot describe the horror this has brought me and all of Steve loved loved ones. It brings me more anger than any than I can put in the words. It's always difficult to lose someone to murder. No question, but the no body case is also it just leaves it open for family members. They have no one to bury. It doesn't feel like it's closed at all. Yeah, but as investigators, we talk about all this work that goes into these no body cases, but it's really important to remember that the loved ones here have the real burden. I can only hope that they were able to find closure maybe and the fact that this went the way it did as far as the court proceedings and so sad for the spouse, you know, his husband seems like such like a gentle nice guy and I fell for him. I have to agree. You get the impression that Stephen Kazi was a nice guy was not one of these like cutthroat lawyers. So I can't imagine what his family is going through. I think it's also important to hear from Stephen's parents and what they said in court. You're going to hear first from his dad and then from his mother. Steve was one of the worst kindest, friendliest, most genuine human beings you could ever hope to meet. He was vibrant and full of life. Every conversation with him left you smiling. His quick wit, his kind smile and heartfelt transparency made him enjoy to be around. It would take me 41 years, 10 months and 9 days to recount everything in my son Stephen's life that mattered to me. I cannot tell all of it today, but I can share what his loss has done to us. When the police told us they knew where Stephen's remains were but could not recover anything, our grief became something indescribable. We had nobody to bury, no funeral, no rituals, no way to honor him in the ways that families have honored their dad for years. I think this is a good reminder of how important these rituals are and how important it is for the victim's families to be able to say goodbye. So I hope this helped a bit. And I think it was very important for us if we're going to talk about this case that focused so much on the defendant. It's really important to end with how important the victim was, Stephen Cawsy. Thank you for letting me tell this story today, Herman. It's a very weird case, disturbing case, upsetting case. And I feel the worst for the family, the families of Stephen Cawsy. I appreciate you having me on Aaron, it's a tough case and it's an interesting case and I'm glad we're talking about it and I really do hope this family, you know, can find some closure. I hope so too. We'll be back next week with another episode of Case by Case. For our continuing coverage, you can check the Case by Case feed wherever you get your podcast, you can also watch episodes of Case by Case on the 48 hours YouTube channel or by searching Case by Case on Paramount Plus. Be sure to rate and review and let us know which cases you're following and which cases you'd like us to follow. For critically acclaimed series, Colin from Accounts returns for a brand new season. But what is it? We're friends. We're friends. We're friends.