Judge denies bail to crypto investor charged with kidnapping and torturing man in posh NYC townhouse

NEW YORK -- A expansive assemblage has indicted a cryptocurrency capitalist who was charged with kidnapping and torturing a man for weeks successful an upscale Manhattan townhouse successful bid to summation entree to his Bitcoin.

John Woeltz, 37, has been jailed since his apprehension Friday extracurricular the luxury rental, wherever an Italian nationalist told constabulary helium was severely beaten, drugged, shocked with electrical wires and dangled implicit a ledge by captors seeking the password to his integer assets.

Woeltz’s alleged accomplice, William Duplessie, surrendered to constabulary Tuesday and is awaiting his ain indictment.

At the proceeding Thursday, an lawyer for Woeltz requested his lawsuit beryllium released connected a $2 cardinal bond, citing his deficiency of transgression record, doctrine grade and nonrecreational accomplishments.

“He’s been precise palmy successful the exertion world,” the attorney, Wayne Gosnell, told a Manhattan judge, adding that his lawsuit “has each volition to combat this case.”

The justice denied bail for Woeltz, who did not look successful court.

Gosnell besides requested that Woeltz not beryllium required to crook implicit firearms that helium legally owns successful Kentucky. And helium disputed the prosecutor’s earlier claims that his lawsuit owned a backstage pitchy and helicopter.

“He has nary means to flee,” Gosnell said.

Woeltz has described himself in interviews arsenic a blockchain capitalist who spent clip successful Silicon Valley earlier returning to Kentucky’s burgeoning crypto-mining industry.

Authorities person said Woeltz and Duplessie, different cryptocurrency investor, knew the unfortunate personally.

On May 6, they lured the antheral — whose sanction has not been released by officials — to a posh townhouse successful Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood, 1 of the city’s astir expensive, by threatening to termination his family.

The antheral said helium was past held captive for 17 days, arsenic the 2 investors tormented him with electrical wires, forced him to fume from a ace tube and astatine 1 constituent dangled him from a staircase 5 stories high.

He yet agreed to manus implicit his machine password Friday morning, past managed to fly the location arsenic his captors went to retrieve the device. The unfortunate made it onto the street, bloodied and shoeless, according to police.

A hunt of the townhouse turned up cocaine, a saw, chickenhearted wire, assemblage armor, nighttime imaginativeness goggles, ammunition and polaroid photos of the unfortunate with a weapon pointed to his head, according to prosecutors.