New York – A cryptocurrency dispute led to the alleged abduction and torture of an Italian in a luxury town house in New York for more than two weeks, police said.
Two men – John Woeltz, 37, and William Duplessie, 33 years old – now face the kidnapping, assault and accusations of illegal imprisonment in the case.
“From what we know now, it was a dispute on cryptography money,” the chief of the NYPD, John Chell, told journalists. “They all know each other, but it was an abduction for about 17 days, where they tortured this person. When I say torture, forced them to take drugs, put their feet in the water and shocked their feet and other types of torture for 17 days.”
Here’s what we know about the case.
The alleged victim attracted to New York
The 28 -year -old alleged victim, whose name was not published publicly by the authorities, told the police that he had arrived in New York from Italy on May 6 and went to the town hall of eight rooms in Woeltz.
Deputy District Prosecutor Michael Mattson said Woeltz and Duplessie would have attracted the man in New York in Italy by threatening to have his family kill.
Once the alleged victim has arrived, he was stripped of his electronics and passport, linked by wrists and subjected to blows, an electric shock and a blow to the head of a pistol, according to the criminal complaint.
Woeltz would have brought the alleged victim to the elite of the stairs and would have hung him on the edge and threatened to kill him if he did not provide his Bitcoin password, according to the complaint.
The alleged victim told the authorities that Woeltz and Duplessie used a saw to cut his leg, urinate him on him and forced him to smoke crack by holding him down or forcing a pipe in his mouth, the prosecutors said.
Escape from the alleged victim
Friday morning, the man escaped from the house, going to a traffic application to get help, the police announced. The alleged victim was taken to a local hospital in a stable state, police said.
The alleged victim was finally able to escape after believing that he was going to be shot dead by telling his captors that he would provide defendants with his Bitcoin password contained on his laptop, according to the prosecutors.
When Woeltz left the alleged victim to recover the laptop, the man was able to escape on the stairs, according to the prosecutors.
Inside the townhouse, the prosecutors said that the detectives had recovered a saw, a crack, a chicken thread, t-shirts with photos of the alleged victim with the crack pipe in the mouth, a body armor, night vision glasses, ballistic helmets, polaroid images of the alleged victim with a weapon. and weapon.
A firearm was also recovered at home, police said.
The police said they had observed blood in various regions of the apartment where the man said he was tortured.
The suspects refused the deposit
Friday, Woeltz, nicknamed the “Kentucky Crypto King of Kentucky”, would have been arrested. The Crypto entrepreneur made no comments to the journalists when he was escorted out of his apartment by the police to handcuff.
Duplessie went to the 13th district of NYPD Tuesday. He did not answer journalists auctioned while being escorted outside the enclosure.
The two men were accused of kidnapping, aggression, illegal imprisonment and criminal possession of a firearm. They pleaded not guilty, according to judicial files.
In relation: The suspect crypto investor in a torture case renounces the appearance of the court after the 2nd suspect
They were denied the surety during their first appearance in court.
Prosecutors convinced the judge to hold Woeltz without surety by stressing that he is Kentucky and has the means to flee, including a private jet and a helicopter.
A judge rejected the request of the lawyer for DuPlesie to be held in home detention with his father in Florida on a deposit of $ 1 million, ABC New York Wabc station reported. His lawyer described the facts of the case and the involvement of Duplesie “strongly disputed”, according to Wabc.
The lawyers of the two suspects had no comments when they were contacted by ABC News.
They risk a maximum sentence of 25 years in life imprisonment if they were found guilty of the first accusation of kidnapping.
A 24 -year -old was also arrested on Friday for kidnapping and illegal imprisonment in the case, police announced. Although the Manhattan district prosecutor’s office does not pursue it at this time and that it is not in police custody.
NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch told a local station on Tuesday that the two men were currently the only suspects of the case.
“So far, these are the two we are looking at,” she said. “There may be others.”
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