'Take Care of Maya' trial: Father takes stand, Sarasota judge denies 2 mistrial motions

The memory of the look on 10-year-old Maya Kowalski’s face as her father was told to leave her in the protective custody of the Florida Department of Children and Families at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in October 2016 is burned into Jack Kowalski’s mind.

It’s a memory he wishes he could erase.

Jack Kowalski wouldn’t see his daughter for a few days after a judge ruled Maya Kowalski would remain in state custody after allegations of child abuse. When he was finally allowed supervised visits, he was turned away the first time with his son, Kyle, after driving over an hour to St. Petersburg from the family’s home in Venice.

He bit his lip, got in his car, and returned home, fearing if he spoke out, he would continue to be barred from seeing his daughter, Jack Kowalski said on the stand Tuesday morning.

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Jack Kowalski testified before the jury for half a day on Monday and all day Tuesday in the highly publicized civil case involving a Venice family suing the St. Petersburg-based hospital.

The Kowalski family sued All Children’s Hospital in 2018 for false imprisonment, negligent infliction of emotional distress, medical negligence, battery, and other claims more than a year after the family matriarch, Beata Kowalski, took her life following allegations she was abusing her daughter.

The family took 10-year-old Maya Kowalski to All Children’s Hospital in October 2016 after she complained of severe stomach pain, believed by the family to be a relapse of her Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, a disorder that impairs the central nervous system and heightens pain sensations. The illness is sometimes also referred to as Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome.

Maya Kowalski was separated from her family, friends, and community following a DCF investigation and ordered by a judge to remain at the hospital. She remained separated for three months before reuniting with her father and brother shortly after her mother’s death.

Decision made about sexual abuse allegation, mistrials averted 

Sarasota Circuit Court Judge Hunter Carroll on Tuesday denied a motion to amend or add the sexual abuse allegations that were newly disclosed on Thursday by Greg Anderson, attorney for the Kowalski family.

Anderson informed the judge and defense last week that Maya Kowalski had recently recalled a situation between her and an unidentified man wearing a white lab coat which could be a possible sexual abuse encounter after she was admitted to Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital in October 2016.

The family's lawyer found a witness, a friend of Maya's whom she had confided in about two years after the incident and was willing to testify, and they found a note in one of the records by Dr. Jennifer Katzenstein, a treating psychologist at All Children's Hospital who had evaluated Maya.

Ethen Shapiro, attorney for the hospital, expressed surprise when the allegations were brought up after a jury was already sworn in and had heard testimony from several witnesses.

A spokesperson for the hospital provided a statement reiterating the hospital's surprise at the allegations and that an investigation has been initiated.

“The new allegations raised by the Kowalski family’s attorneys were a complete surprise to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital," the statement read. "As soon as we became aware of the allegations, and in accordance with our policies, we promptly initiated an investigation. While ongoing litigation and strict federal privacy laws restrict us from sharing more at this time, we take allegations of this nature very seriously and always put the safety of our patients above all else.”

In a court document, attorneys for the Kowalski family asked that the newly discovered evidence about the alleged sexual abuse be admitted as it further supported their clients' current battery claim.

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Following the judge's decision to deny the motion to add or amend the complaint, Anderson moved for a mistrial.

Shapiro asked Carroll to deny the mistrial motion, adding that he spoke with Katzenstein regarding the note, and she recalled that Maya had mentioned that it happened at a different hospital, not All Children's.

Carroll denied the mistrial motion.

Earlier in the day, Shapiro also made a motion for mistrial regarding a statement made by Jack Kowalski during his testimony about covert video surveillance taken of Maya Kowalski over a two-day period. Jack Kowalski had been unaware that the hospital recorded his daughter in an isolated room to observe if she was faking her condition.

Jack Kowalski mentioned if he'd had the videos prior to a November dependency hearing with DCF, he wouldn't be in court today.

Shapiro said the statement prejudiced the jury to think that the hospital hadn't provided evidence to the Kowalski family, despite the fact that attorneys for the hospital had sent over the videos and the Kowalskis' family attorney had trouble accessing them. Carroll also denied Shapiro's motion.

Testimony from former SCSO detective

The jury was greeted Monday morning by testimony from former Sarasota County Sheriff’s detective Jerek Szalbirak who investigated Beata Kowalski’s death on Jan. 8, 2017.

Carroll asked those in the gallery if they believed it would be too much to see a photograph of Beata Kowalski after she was found in her home hanging from the garage door frame to step out of the courtroom until after the detective's testimony.

The jury also for the first time was introduced to the two suicide letters Beata Kowalski had written — one to her family and the second to Sarasota Circuit Court Judge Lee Haworth, the judge overseeing the dependency hearing who had barred Beata from hugging her daughter during a hearing on Jan. 6, 2017.

In the first letter, Beata asked that Maya be taken care of. Szalbirak explained that the letters gave a good insight into Beata's emotional pain.

“I’m sorry but I no longer can take the pain of being away from Maya and being treated like a criminal,” Beata wrote in one letter. “I cannot watch my daughter suffer in pain and keep getting worse while my hands are (tied) by the state of Florida and the judge! It’s been three months today of Maya not being home!”

In the second letter penned to Haworth, Beata blamed the hospital, doctors, and judge for the pain caused to her family, writing in the first line that it was the hospital and DCF that “destroyed Maya physically and mentally.” She added that the last three months were far worse than her experience of growing up in Communist-era Poland.

David Hughes, an attorney representing the hospital, questioned Szalbirak if he had collected a clear, plastic medical bag labeled sodium chloride, or salt water, that had been attached to Beata Kowalski’s arm and several syringes from the scene, including two found under Beata’s sweatshirt. Szalbirak confirmed everything was collected and submitted to the medical examiner’s office.

Jack Kowalski takes the stand Monday afternoon, Tuesday all-day

Jack Kowalski stepped onto the stand Monday afternoon wearing a pewter gray suit and a light pink tie with tiny dark diamonds spaced across the surface. Across from him in the courtroom, Maya and Kyle Kowalski had joined their attorneys at their tables. They two were absent Tuesday during the rest of their father's testimony.

Jack detailed for the jury how he grew up in Chicago and became a deputy fire chief in a department that covered a 2.2 square-mile radius in a suburb of the city.

He met Beata while at a dinner with neighbors and knew right away that she was the one. The two had similar hobbies, including scuba diving and winemaking, Jack Kowalski said. The two wed and soon had Maya and Kyle.

From the onset, Jack Kowalski said his wife was a very loving and attentive mother, even donating her blood platelets right after her son was born with a low platelet count.

The family moved to Venice in 2014 and a year later, Jack Kowalski recalled hearing his daughter moan out in pain in the family’s kitchen during a Fourth of July celebration. Jack said his wife took Maya to Sarasota Memorial Hospital that evening, starting the harrowing ordeal the family went through trying to find an answer and cure, for then 9-year-old Maya Kowalski.

A key part of Jack Kowalski's testimony included laying out a timeline for the jury about all of Maya Kowalski's visits to Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital prior to her admission on Oct. 7, 2016, her trips to other hospitals in Chicago and Tampa, her visits with Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick, who diagnosed Maya with CRPS, and her trip to Monterrey, Mexico, where she was placed in a ketamine-induced coma.

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After Maya Kowalski was admitted to the hospital in October 2016, it wasn't long before Beata and Jack Kowalski wanted to take their daughter from the hospital, Jack Kowalski testified. However, the couple were told they would be discharging Maya against medical advice and were also told they would be arrested if they took their daughter from the hospital.

Shapiro pointed out in his cross-examination that in a hospital note from Oct. 11, just days after Maya was admitted, there was nothing in the note stating the parents wanted to leave.

Jack Kowalski also told a Sarasota County Sheriff's Office detective that he was supportive of Maya staying in the hospital, according to Shapiro.

When Jack Kowalski was allowed to return to the hospital for supervised visits with his daughter, it was still a challenge. He recalled one moment when social worker Catherine Bedy approached him and asked if he considered divorcing his wife.

In another instance, Jack had brought his daughter dresses for Christmas but couldn't deliver the dresses to her. Instead, a nurse took the dresses from him, and he later learned they were kept in Bedy's office. Maya Kowalski didn't receive the dresses until Jack Kowalski asked about it.

Jack Kowalski also testified that Beata Kowalski refused to sign the transfer papers to have Maya moved to Nemours Children's Health in Orlando after she initially was on board because the paperwork indicated she would be agreeing with a Munchausen by Proxy diagnosis.

Jack said he felt "extremely misled," and despite wanting to get out of the hospital, they refused to sign the papers because it would have been admitting guilt, which would have affected Beata Kowalski's career as a nurse. Further, having that in Maya's record would affect her ability to get proper treatment, especially if no one was with her to explain her medical history.

As time progressed, Jack Kowalski saw both his wife and daughter deteriorate — his wife from the stress of not being able to see her daughter and hearing about her daughter's condition worsening, and his daughter from being isolated and not receiving proper pain management treatments. Jack said he observed more lesions, dystonia, and loss of muscle tone in Maya.

Jack Kowalski said he discovered that the hospital was billing for CRPS treatments or services while simultaneously claiming that Maya Kowalski was faking her condition or had Munchausen by Proxy.

"It was alarming because we were told she didn't have CRPS," Jack Kowalski said.

After he was able to get Maya out of the hospital, Jack Kowalski said he feared she wouldn't make it and that his wife had felt the same. Driving over the Skyway Bridge, surrounded by stuffed animals and pillows in the back seat, Maya Kowalski had a big smile on her face, Jack Kowalski recalled.

Shapiro pressed Jack Kowalski about the statements he gave to detective Stephanie Graham in which Jack had told the detective that Maya would start acting in more pain whenever her mom was around. When Jack said on the stand that Maya would also indicate she was in pain around him, Shapiro played the interview with Graham in court.

"I noticed that too with myself at home and then mom comes home from work, there would be changes," Jack Kowalski can be heard in the recording of a Nov. 17, 2016, interview. He said Maya wouldn't complain of pain until her mom walked through the door.

Gabriela Szymanowska covers the legal system for the Herald-Tribune in partnership with Report for America. You can support her work with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America. Contact Gabriela Szymanowska at gszymanowska@gannett.com, or on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota judge denies 2 mistrial motions in 'Take Care of Maya' trial