Michigan husband who poisoned estranged wife's coffee on multiple occasions sentenced to just 60 days in prison
MOUNT CLEMENS, MICHIGAN: A Michigan man who pleaded guilty to poisoning his wife on multiple occasions will serve just 60 days in prison, with the added caveat that he will only have to spend time behind bars on weekends.
Macomb County prosecutors have been left irked after a visiting judge handed down the stripped-down sentence to Brian Kozlowski, 46, who had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of poisoning and was facing up to 15 years in prison had the case gone to trial, according to the Daily Mail.
Kozlowski, who had been married to his wife Therese Kozlowski for 22 years and shared three children with her, started poisoning her after she filed for divorce in May 2018.
It was two months later, in July 2018, that she noticed feeling tired and nauseated, as well as experiencing blurred vision, after she drank the coffee her husband had prepared for her.
Suspicious of him, she installed hidden cameras in their kitchen, which, in turn, caught Kozlowski spiking her morning coffee on multiple occasions with a drug that was later determined to be an antihistamine called Diphenhydramine.
She then contacted her divorce lawyer and immediately moved out of the house. Luckily, she survived.
Diphenhydramine is the main component in popular allergy medicine Benadryl, with the last coffee Kozlowski had prepared for his wife found to contain 127 mg of the drug — the recommended dosage for adults is between 25-50 mg.
Kozlowski was arrested and eventually accepted a plea deal that saw him agree to plead guilty to a felony charge of poison in exchange for avoiding a trial where he faced the possibility of going behind bars for 15 years.
Prosecutors still sought a severe penalty, pointing to criminal guidelines that stated a defendant must do a minimum of 19 to 38 months in prison. "This defendant deserves nothing less than a prison cell for his actions and that is what we will be stressing," they announced.
During his sentencing hearing this past week at the 16th Circuit Court, Therese delivered an emotional impact statement and explained how the poisoned coffee had almost seen her fall asleep behind the wheel one morning.
She said that, on one occasion, her adult daughter mistakenly consumed the coffee as well. "Brian’s continuous, methodical, and calculated plot to poison me included a complete disregard for human life, including his own daughter, along with hundreds of other drivers who he put at risk every day for weeks," she said.
She also recounted how she was had been emotionally devastated the first time she had seen her husband mixing Diphenhydramine into her coffee.
"I felt a horrible coldness in the air as if I was hunted by a dangerous predator, but in this nightmare, the predator was Brian," she said. "I felt to my knees and cried."
Kozlowski apologized in court, with his lawyer Brian Legghio stating that his client was going through an "ugly divorce" and has "great profound remorse" for his actions.
Visiting Judge Antonio Viviano, who said he was inclined to give Kozlowski probation until he heard his wife's plea, still delivered a sentence that heavily sided with the defense.
Viviano noted that the 46-year-old "does have a sense of remorse" and handed down a two-month sentence only to be served on weekends.
Prosecutor Eric Smith called the sentence "a slap in the face" of the victim and the justice system, in general, and announced their intention to appeal the sentence.
In a statement to the Daily Mail, he criticized the judge and wrote, "The Court seemed more focused on ensuring the defendant’s freedom and ability to continue to work than the victim and her safety."
"It is troubling to think that someone who commits such a reckless crime, putting his wife and so many other people at risk, is able to walk away with such a light sentence."