A cryptocurrency investor has been charged after he allegedly kidnapped an Italian former business partner and tortured him for two weeks — using a taser, chainsaw and other twisted methods — inside a plush New York City townhouse as part of a sadistic plot to steal passwords, according to police and reports.
John Woeltz, 37, was seen cuffed wearing a robe and barefooted outside his pad in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan on Friday morning, shortly after his victim made a daring escape and called the police for help.
Woeltz, who is understood to have had prior business dealings with the 28-year-old unidentified victim, helped lure the man to the Princes Street townhouse on May 6, snatched his passport and tied him up before torturing him in an extortion plot to get the sought-after passwords, the New York Post reports citing police sources. A 24-year-old female has also been arrested, police told Fox News.
The victim endured severe abuse, including being bound with electrical cords, tasered while his feet were submerged in water, pistol-whipped, forced to ingest cocaine and threatened with dismemberment using an electric chainsaw, the outlet reported.
Polaroid photos showing the tourist being tied up with electrical wire and tortured, including one of him bound to a chair with a gun pointed at his head, were discovered by police, according to the sources, along with weapons and other incriminating evidence.
The victim managed to escape and call a nearby traffic cop.
Officers responded to the address around 10 a.m. and witnesses described a dramatic scene as police, SWAT teams and emergency vehicles swarmed the area, Fox 5 reported.
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Woeltz, who the Post reports is from Kentucky, has been charged with two counts of second-degree assault, one count of kidnapping and one count of unlawful imprisonment, police told Fox News.
Woeltz, a crypto entrepreneur an investor, was perp walked out of the 5th Precinct station last night wearing a white T-shirt and said nothing to screaming reporters.
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The victim was transported to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition.
The 24-year-old woman, Beatrice Folchi of Manhattan, has been charged with kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment.
“He looked like a decent guy,” one resident told Fox 5 describing Woeltz. “He just looked like a rich guy in a nice bathrobe, clean-shaven, hair was done. It didn’t look like police had a problem arresting him.
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