How $100m ‘Crypto King' John Woeltz went from school goth to alleged torturer, and why his parents had to bail him out
The judge releasing John Woeltz, 37, said to be worth $100m, stipulated he wasn't allowed to pay his bail with cryptocurrency.
That led to his father, Matthew Van Woeltz, putting his own home on the line and his mother Joan agreeing to cough up $1 million, should their son fail to meet the terms of his bond, according to court documents seen by The Post.
He is now under house arrest in New York while waiting trial, a world away from the private jets he was accustomed to traveling in and the nightclubs where he would drop tens of thousands of dollars.
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8 Woeltz was released from jail to home confinement in New York on July 31. His co-accused, William Duplessie, remains behind bars.
Diamond / BACKGRID
Woeltz' glitzy lifestyle before his arrest was itself far removed from his upbringing, when he was a 'goth' kid from an 'affluent' family and a computer nerd back in Paducah, Kentucky.
'I know his whole family. It's heartbreaking. I don't know what happened. He was a really good person,' one former classmate told The Post.
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A change appears to have taken place in Woeltz in late 2024 when he started hanging around with his co-accused, William Duplessie — the flashy, 6′ 5″ son of a former hedge fund manager who spilt his time between Miami and Switzerland before the couple's ill-fated run in Manhattan earlier this year.
Woeltz was released from Riker's Island a week after a Manhattan judge granted both he and Duplessie $1m bail each over the shocking alleged kidnapping and torture of Italian crypto trader Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan, who had been visiting them, in May. Both men have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.
8 The so-called 'Crypto Bros' Woeltz (seated right) and Duplessie (seated left) were both granted $1m bail, but so far only Woeltz has been released from Riker's Island.
Steven Hirsch
Duplessie, 33, remains behind bars.
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While Woeltz – assumed to have all his assets tied up in digital currency – was able to get help from his parents, it's unclear why Duplessie has not posted bail. Sources confirmed he hasn't had a bond package approved yet.
When his father and former business partner, James, was reached by The Post, he declined to speak.
Woeltz and Duplessie were listed in different facilities on Riker's before their bail hearings.
Prosecutors allege Woeltz and Duplessie had tortured Carturan by allegedly lighting him on fire, cutting him with a chainsaw and holding a gun to his head in order to hijack the password for his Bitcoin wallet, worth millions.
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The pair also allegedly threatened the 28-year-old victim's family in Italy — while subjecting him to humiliation by having people urinate on him and forcing him to take drugs during captivity, authorities have claimed.
8 William Duplessie pictured in a New York nighclub. The crypto investor was known for his hard partying before he was arrested.
TMZ / BACKGRID
8 The Soho townhouse at 38 Prince Street, where Carturan was allegedly tortured for weeks.
REUTERS
However, lawyers for the pair maintain the whole thing was a misunderstanding. They allege Carturan was a willing participant who was free to leave at any time and that he was only subjected to a kind of 'hazing' ritual.
The allegations come as a major shock to those who grew up with Woeltz in Paducah.
Several sources described Woeltz as an ordinary kid who didn't appear to be particularly close with any other students when they were classmates at Paducah Middle School.
Jefferson Jones, a former Paducah Middle School student, said Woeltz didn't stand out from the crowd.
'I knew of him as a classmate but he wasn't in my direct circle of friends,' Jones told The Post. 'He seemed kind of normal to me.'
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8 Sources claimed Woeltz and Duplessie had claimed they worked for the CIA and that they went aruond their houses with night vision goggles and sometimes with a chainsaw.
TMZ / BACKGRID
8 Woeltz and Duplessie bought this mansion in Smithland, Kentucky, months before their arrest and flew friends out form Florida for a debauched party in February.
Google Maps
Another ex-classmate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he was had also been on a wrestling team with Woeltz.
'He was maybe someone that leaned towards not being afraid to get into trouble, but he wasn't bad. He came from an affluent family which helps socially in a town like ours but it doesn't guarantee you will be close to anyone.'
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Another former student remembered Woeltz as 'a goth'.
Woeltz's father — who still lives in Paducah and is a well-respected neurologist — could not be reached for comment.
The philosophy major graduated in 2012 with a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring from the University of Kentucky before moving to California's Silicon Valley to invest in startups.
'That's what you had to do then to succeed in the industry,' Woeltz told the Paducah Sun in 2020.
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Although he moved away, Woeltz often returned to his roots in the Bluegrass State, where he purchased a mansion earlier this year, as exclusively revealed by The Post.
8 Woeltz in 2019 giving a presentation at Grincon, a crypto company where he previously worked.
@gakonst/x
The six-bedroom waterfront home in Smithland was bought by Woeltz and Duplessie for $1 million cash in January, multiple sources told The Post.
The house was later raided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the NYPD, with support from the Kentucky State Police, according to a release from authorities. Five guns and ammunition were seized, according to the ATF.
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A Smithland resident who spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity said that both Woeltz and Duplessie were the talk of the town while living in the mansion because people were always 'coming and going' from the property.
He said the pair ingratiated themselves with the local Chamber of Commerce and tried to 'fit in as much as possible'.
8 John Woeltz is now on home detention with an ankle monitor.
Steven Hirsch for NY Post
'As far as small community goes there was talk they were looking at making the mansion a venue for events,' the source claimed.
'There were all kinds of rumors going around. At the same time there was an undercurrent that something wasn't right.'
More recent friends described how they had been flown from Florida to the Kentucky home to party with the crypto bros in February, but noted both were increasingly paranoid.
Once at the house Woeltz and Duplessie claimed they were CIA operatives and carried loaded guns, and communicated by writing messages to each other on typewriter and then burning them so their guests couldn't see what they were talking about, according to New York magazine, which also reported the pair were allegedly consuming quantities of cocaine.
During the same weekend Duplessie is said to have pulled a loaded gun on the chef he had hired and only relented after other guests intervened, according to the magazine.
It was a few weeks after this weekend Woeltz and Duplessie moved into the $75,000 a month rental home on Prince Street. There they enlisted fixers and held bigger parties with more people and things started getting even more out of hand.
Videos taken within the house show unidentified people having sex, taking drugs and partying hard. The videos, first published by TMZ, also showed Carturan apparently cooking drugs and also strapped to a chair.
Both defendants are next scheduled to appear in court on October 15.
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