NYC crypto trader accused of Italian man's kidnap, torture threatened to kill his family to get Bitcoin password: prosecutors

Yahoo

25-05-2025

NEW YORK — The 37-year-old Crypto trader accused of kidnapping a 28-year-old Italian man inside a luxurious SoHo apartment repeatedly shocked his victim with electric wires, held him upside down from the top of a staircase, cut his leg with a saw and threatened to kill the victim's family — all to get the password to the man's Bitcoin account, prosecutors said Saturday.
Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Eric Schumacher ordered John Woeltz held without bail on assault and kidnapping charges as police continued to search for his accomplice. He also issued a restraining order against Woeltz, so if he does get out of jail, he can't go anywhere near his victim.
A second alleged accomplice, a 24-year-old woman, was arrested late Friday but prosecutors declined to bring charges. Detectives on Saturday were still going through the Soho home, bringing out large paper evidence bags.
Prosecutors said the victim arrived in the U.S. on May 6 and visited Woeltz. The two men share interests in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, cops said.
The extortion plot was uncovered after Woeltz's victim managed to escape his swanky Prince and Mulberry Sts. home in SoHo Friday morning and wave down a New York Police Department traffic enforcement agent, who called police.
Responding officers found Woeltz in the $30,000-a-month, eight-bedroom apartment swaddled in a plush white bathrobe.
'The guy comes out in a white bathrobe, barefoot, hands cuffed behind his back, got into a police car,' Ciaran Tully, 64, a vendor who sells photographs on Prince St., told The New York Daily News Friday. 'He didn't look concerned. He didn't look worried or anything like that.'
Trading in his robe for a white T-shirt, black pants and black and white-striped Adidas slides, Woeltz said nothing as Assistant District Attorney Michael Mattson laid out the case against him.
'Upon arriving at the home, (Woeltz and his accomplice) took all of the victim's electronics and his passport, rendering the victim unable to call for help,' Mattson said.
The two bound their victim's wrists and over the next three weeks subjected him to 'beatings including but not limited to the use of electric wires to shock him, using a firearm to hit him on the head, and pointing the firearm at his head on several occasions,' Mattson explained. '(They) used a saw to cut his leg, urinated on the victim, forced him to smoke crack cocaine by holding him down and forcing it into his mouth.'
The duo also 'tied an airtag around his neck with a chain or wire,' Mattson said. 'They (said they) would kill his family and they would find the victim if he left.'
After apprehending Woeltz, police found disturbing Polaroid photos of him and his accomplice torturing their victim and holding a gun to his head.
Sometime during the victim's capture, Woeltz and his accomplice managed to get printed T-shirts of the victim smoking crack. The shirts were found in the home, along with body armor, night vision goggles, ammunition and ballistic helmets, officials said.
The crypto trader refused to talk to police after he was arrested.
'He lawyered up immediately,' a police source said.
On Friday morning, Woeltz 'carried the victim to the top flight of stairs in the townhouse and hung the victim over the ledge as the defendant threatened to kill the victim if the victim would not provide the defendant with the victim's bitcoin password,' Mattson said.
After being pistol-whipped once again, the victim finally consented, but said he needed a laptop, the prosecutor said.
'When the defendant left the victim to retrieve the victim's laptop, the victim was able to escape down the stairs,' Mattson said. 'The victim was bloodied and had no shoes on.'
He was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was treated and released.
When requesting he be held without bail, prosecutors said Woeltz had the means to escape the country.
'(He) has a private jet and a helicopter,' Mattson said.
Woeltz is facing 15 years to life if convicted. His attorney Wayne Gosnell declined to comment to reporters after the brief arraignment proceeding.
Woeltz has been featured as a speaker at several cryptocurrency conferences and has 'nearly a decade of experience with technology startups in Silicon Valley,' according to online profiles.
Woeltz's mother Joan Woeltz said her son was an early believer of cryptocurrency and 'had been mining Bitcoin from the age of 12.'
During his travels in the crypto world, he had been taken in and corrupted by another cryptocurrency trader who systematically isolated him from his family and may have been the mastermind of this scheme, the mother claimed.
'We've been concerned about this person entering his life and kind of controlling it,' she said in an exclusive interview with the Daily News. 'My family and I have been concerned for some time for John's well being and what influence he was under with these people.
'We could never speak to John anymore without them being there,' Joan said, adding that the other trader and his cohorts had been influencing her son since December 2023. 'It was very sudden. Suddenly this person entered John's life, and we were suddenly isolated from John.'
Neighbors said the SoHo townhouse was vacant as of December. No one had any idea someone was being held captive and tortured inside.
'I saw the police,' neighbor Luigi, 37, told the Daily News. 'It was a surprise.'