What to KnowAn Italian man escaped from a home on Prince Avenue in New York Metropolis final week, the place he stated he had been held captive for 17 days and tortured by two enterprise companions; sources described the connection among the many three as complicated, with a “Wolf of Wall Street/frat guys gone wild” ingredient to itThe so-called “crypto king of Kentucky,” John Woeltz, was arrested in his bathrobe outdoors the scene; he’s anticipated in court docket on kidnap and torture expenses, amongst others, on Wednesday. A second suspect, William Duplessie, surrendered in reference to the case a day agoPolice discovered the sufferer lined in cuts and bruises, with ligature marks on his wrists. Video obtained solely by NBC New York exhibits the sufferer, matted and shoeless, working down Spring Avenue
A 37-year-old man identified by some because the “crypto king of Kentucky” has been indicted by a grand jury on expenses he and a enterprise associate kidnapped and tortured an Italian man, holding him captive inside a complicated townhouse in Nolita for weeks in a bid to get the person’s Bitcoin password.
John Woeltz, 37, has been jailed since his arrest Friday outdoors the luxurious rental. He was taken into custody in his bathrobe. Woeltz was ordered held with out bail after his listening to Thursday.
Woeltz’s alleged confederate, William Duplessie, surrendered to police earlier within the week and is awaiting his personal indictment.
On the listening to Thursday, an lawyer for Woeltz requested his shopper be launched on a $2 million bond, citing his lack of prison report, philosophy diploma {and professional} accomplishments.
“He’s been very successful in the technology world,” the lawyer, Wayne Gosnell, advised a Manhattan choose, including that his shopper “has every intention to fight this case.”
The choose denied bail for Woeltz, who didn’t seem in court docket.
Gosnell additionally requested that Woeltz not be required to show over firearms that he legally owns in Kentucky. And he disputed the prosecutor’s earlier claims that his shopper owned a non-public jet and helicopter.
“He has no means to flee,” Gosnell stated.
Woeltz has described himself in interviews as a blockchain investor who hung out in Silicon Valley earlier than returning to Kentucky’s burgeoning crypto-mining trade.
A second man is about to face a choose after his arrest in a stunning investigation involving cryptocurrency, kidnapping and torture. William Duplessie surrendered to the NYPD on Tuesday, accused of holding an Italian businessman hostage for weeks in an effort to achieve entry to his Bitcoin accunt. NBC New York’s Marc Santia reviews.
Authorities have stated Woeltz and Duplessie, one other cryptocurrency investor, knew the sufferer personally.
On Might 6, they lured the person — whose title has not been launched by officers — to a complicated townhouse in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood, one of many metropolis’s costliest, by threatening to kill his household.
The person stated he was then held captive for 17 days, as the 2 traders tormented him with electrical wires, compelled him to smoke from a crack pipe and at one level dangled him from a staircase 5 tales excessive.
He ultimately agreed handy over his pc password Friday morning, then managed to flee the house as his captors went to retrieve the system. The sufferer made it onto the road, bloodied and shoeless, in accordance with police.
A search of the townhouse turned up cocaine, a noticed, rooster wire, physique armor, night time imaginative and prescient goggles, ammunition and polaroid pictures of the sufferer with a gun pointed to his head, in accordance with prosecutors.
Who’s John Woeltz?
Authorities imagine Woeltz is a big-name cryptocurrency dealer from Kentucky with an estimated price round $100 million; sources stated the sufferer is price an estimated $30 million. Woeltz had reportedly been renting out the Nolita residence at a month-to-month price of not less than $30,000.
The posh six-story pad has an elevator and was described by sources as a “high-end frat house” with bottles of liquor strewn about and stripper poles within the basement. Neighbors stated they might hear loud partying in any respect hours of the night time, however that they had no thought of the alleged torture occurring inside its partitions.
