NEW YORK (Reuters) -A grand jury has indicted a 37-year-old cryptocurrency investor accused of kidnapping a enterprise accomplice in Manhattan’s upscale Soho neighborhood for 3 weeks, surprising him with electrical wires, and dangling him over a staircase to attempt to get him to surrender his Bitcoin password, prosecutors mentioned on Wednesday.
John Woeltz was arrested on Might 23, court docket information present. In response to a legal criticism filed in Manhattan legal court docket, an unnamed man instructed New York Metropolis police that Woeltz and one other man, William Duplessie, on Might 6 took his digital gadgets and passport demanded he quit his password so they may steal his cryptocurrency.
Woeltz and Duplessie, 33, haven’t but entered pleas. Their attorneys declined to remark.
Native media have referred to as Woeltz a cryptocurrency investor and described the alleged sufferer as an Italian man. Each had ties to a crypto hedge fund in New York, the New York Occasions reported, citing an inside police report described by a legislation enforcement official.
When the person refused to share his password, Woeltz and Duplessie allegedly started a collection of brutal beatings till the person managed to flee weeks later. They tied his wrists, hit him on the top with a gun, and threatened to kill his household, in accordance with the complaints towards the 2 males.
Duplessie was arrested on Tuesday and is due in court docket for a preliminary listening to on Friday. Judges have ordered each males detained.
Woeltz is because of be arraigned on June 11.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Modifying by Alistair Bell)
