Late last week, Lower Manhattan was shocked by the bizarre news of the kidnapping and torture of an Italian crypto investor by a gang led by his former business partner in New York’s SoHo district.
On May 23, local residents witnessed the spectacle of crypto trader John Woeltz being escorted out of his luxury apartment in a white bathrobe by heavily armed officers of the NYPD’s 5th Precinct.
His bloodied victim had escaped from Woeltz’s SoHo townhouse earlier that morning at around 9:37 a.m. and alerted the authorities to where he had been held captive and subjected to several weeks of brutal treatment, according to a criminal complaint provided to CBS News New York.
Police reported that the unnamed victim was kidnapped on May 6 by Woeltz and his alleged accomplice after arriving in New York from Italy.
An EMS team took the victim to Bellevue Hospital, where he has been listed in stable condition.
The NY Post reported that investigators searching the townhouse discovered several horrifying Polaroids showing the victim being bound, humiliated, and tortured, including a photo showing a handgun being pointed at his head.
Thirty-seven-year-old Woeltz was charged with two counts of second-degree assault, first-degree kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, and criminal possession of a weapon, according to the NYPD.
The authorities later announced that 24-year-old Beatrice Folchi of Manhattan had also been arrested and charged as an accomplice.
The NYPD has yet to provide information about Folchi’s relationship to Woeltz, but she is facing one count each of first-degree kidnapping and first-degree unlawful imprisonment of the 28-year-old Italian citizen.
However, after Woeltz’s arraignment, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office stated that it had “declined to prosecute” Folchi “pending further investigation.”
At his May 24 arraignment in New York County Criminal Court, Woeltz was ordered to surrender his passport as a flight risk and was held without bail.
Woeltz and his accomplice had allegedly conspired to lure the victim, one of his former cryptocurrency business partners, back from Italy to extort him for millions in crypto coin.
Prosecutors said that he and Folchi lured the Italian to his home on the pretense that he could retrieve more Bitcoin, after previously forcing the victim to send him some earlier under duress.
The crypto investor had been renting the swanky 19th-century brick townhouse and former Catholic school on 38 Prince Street, where the kidnapping took place, for $30,000 to $40,000 a month. The former school turned torture chamber was sold off years ago and transformed into a luxurious eight-bedroom residence.
The victim told investigators that as soon as he arrived at Woeltz’s home, the pair held him hostage and confiscated his electronic items and passport. They then tied him up with electric wire and attached an Apple AirTag to his neck to prevent escape.
The defendants then proceeded to electrocute the victim with a taser, carve his arm with a chainsaw, force him to smoke crack cocaine, and pistol-whip him with a firearm. They simultaneously threatened various methods of execution unless he provided them with his Bitcoin password, according to the criminal complaint. They also allegedly promised to cut his limbs off with the chainsaw and murder his entire family if he failed to comply.
The NYPD has confirmed that a chainsaw, broken glass, night vision goggles, a bulletproof vest, and a gun were recovered from the bloodstained home, reported the New York Post.
The victim told police that he only managed to escape after revealing the Bitcoin password on his laptop when he was informed that he would be executed on May 23 for failing to comply.
After his captors left to fetch his laptop, he somehow managed to make his escape, said prosecutors.
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CBS News reported that two butlers at the residence were also being interviewed by the police.
Woeltz is set to return to court on May 28.
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