(Bloomberg) – Two men accused of having kidnapped and tortured an Italian tourist in an attempt to force him to hand over access to his cryptocurrency accounts argued not guilty of an indictment which accused them of first degree kidnapping.
The defendants, John Woeltz and William Duplessie, said their pleads before the Supreme Court of New York State, Gregory Carro in Manhattan, and were detained without surety while waiting for another appearance in July. The Deputy Prosecutor of District Sarah Khan asked Carro to keep the two men in prison, while their lawyers asked to be released over a million dollars in deposit.
The two were arrested after the victim, seriously injured and barefoot, escaped from the townhouse of Prince Street where he was detained on May 23 and reported a traffic agent. The case is involved in the middle of a series of crimes targeting high -level investors and cryptographic executives, including an attempt to remove the family members of the French Crypto Exchange Paymium CEO last month.
The lawyer of Duplesie, Sanford Talkin, argued that his client went voluntarily and was not a risk of theft. He said the allegations of prosecutors that the victim had been detained and tortured was “completely false” and that there are videos showing the victim who smoked the crack, being involved in a “sexual orgy” and “the time of his life”.
Khan said the victim was a friend with the defendants for several years and finally presented them. All three were involved in the cryptocurrency and several months ago, the accused would have persuaded the victim to go to a place outside Manhattan where they convinced him to put his aircraft as well as a passh touch, depriving him of access to “a sum of substantial money”. The victim went voluntarily and months later, the couple invited him to another meeting in Manhattan.
“Meanwhile, he felt threatened by them,” said Khan. “He gave them more electronic devices and he said that if he didn’t do it, bad things would happen to him and his family.”
The victim then returned home, but returned on May 6 in response to the threats of the accused. He was then captive, his phone was removed and he was constantly watched, said Khan. He would have been whipped and cut with a small chainsaw, and the defendants arranged so that he was photographed in “various poses and acts to create the impression that he was not detained against his will”. He was not allowed to leave without escort, she said, but on May 23, the victim finally escaped, barefoot and “made a desperate race for the first uniform officer he saw”.
The victim received medical treatment and never received his money, Khan said. His account was corroborated by other sources, she said, and a search warrant executed on the residence where he was detained led to the discovery of a loaded pistol and a chainsaw, as well as a photograph of one of the accused placing a weapon at the head of the victim and another photo of him attached to a wheelchair.
Prosecutors are still examining many devices that have been recovered from the location, including around 30 mobile phones and laptops and 30 other storage devices, she said.
“He came and came as he wanted,” said Talkin, noting that a dog walker told them that the victim would perform regularly with him. Talkin also said that the Defense had obtained supervision of the victim suspended outside a nearby glasses store 36 hours before leaving the residence where he laughed, smoked and spoke with a smuggler.
“The story he sells simply does not make sense,” said Talkin.
The alleged victim was “in the neighborhood throughout his time in New York,” said Woletz lawyer Wayne Gossell. “He was in church, he was in clubs, he was at dinner.”
Khan said that “someone in the defendant circle” selectively discloses videos to fight against the allegations of prosecutors and urged the judge to examine the elements of evidence in the case before making a decision -making decision, saying that they had proofs of the victim on fire and that “the victims of abuse will not always act in a way that we expect.” There is evidence that the defendants have sometimes poured tequila on the victim and prompted it before putting the flames, sometimes urinating on him, which “shows the gravity of the things that happened in this house”.
Prosecutors have also been informed by other organizations responsible for the application of laws that this is not the first time that these defendants have occupied people against their will and that there are less than two other alleged victims in other places.
Carro refused to set the surety after Wednesday’s hearing, saying that he wanted to review the minutes of the Grand Jury. He organized a state conference for July 15.
– With the help of Olga Kharif.
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