A third person accused of kidnapping a man and torturing him for nearly three weeks to steal his Bitcoin fortune surrendered to the police in New York City on Tuesday morning, Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch said.
The police identified the man, who has connections to Switzerland and Miami, as William Duplessie, 33. He had spent days negotiating his surrender with the Police Department after the arrest on Friday of two other suspects, according to two law enforcement officials briefed on the matter.
One of the people arrested on Friday, John Woeltz, 37, a cryptocurrency investor, faces kidnapping, assault and firearms charges. The other, Beatrice Folchi, 24, who was initially charged by the police with kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment, was quickly released and her prosecution was deferred, one of the officials said.
Mr. Duplessie “is going to be charged, with Mr. Woeltz, with kidnapping and false imprisonment of an associate,” Commissioner Tisch said Tuesday in an interview on Fox 5.
Shortly before 11:30 a.m., Mr. Duplessie, in handcuffs and flanked by two detectives, was walked out of a precinct house on East 21st Street in Manhattan. Wearing a white polo shirt and black pants, Mr. Duplessie did not respond to questions as he was placed in a waiting police cruiser.
The episode burst into public view on Friday morning when the victim, an Italian man named Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan, escaped from a lavish, 17-room townhouse in the NoLIta neighborhood of Manhattan, where he was being held captive, and flagged down a traffic agent.
Mr. Carturan and Mr. Woeltz had ties to a crypto hedge fund in New York, according to an internal police report relayed by a third law enforcement official. But Mr. Carturan and Mr. Woeltz fell out over money and Mr. Carturan flew to Italy, according to the report. Soon after, Mr. Woeltz persuaded him to return to New York.
Mr. Carturan arrived at the townhouse, at 38 Prince Street, on May 6, where he was captured and held by Mr. Woeltz and Ms. Folchi, the report said. They wanted the password to a Bitcoin wallet worth millions, the report said.
Mr. Carturan was bound with electrical cords and whipped with a gun, according to the report. The attackers also submerged his feet in water and used a Taser gun to jolt him with electricity.
Inside the townhouse, investigators discovered photographs of Mr. Carturan being tortured, several guns, a ballistic vest and broken furniture — much of it on the third floor of the home, the report said.
Mr. Carturan said that as he rebuffed his captors’ demands, the assaults escalated, and he was carried to the top of the five-story home and suspended over the ledge.
After his escape, Mr. Carturan told the police the harrowing story, according to the report.
Mr. Duplessie’s lawyer, Sanford Talkin, declined to comment, as did Mr. Woeltz’s lawyer, Wayne Ervin Gosnell Jr. Mr. Woeltz’s mother also declined to comment.
Efforts to reach a lawyer for Ms. Folchi was unsuccessful.
The case comes amid a rash of jarring attacks around the globe in which high-ranking crypto executives and their relatives have been kidnapped or assaulted for ransom.
The so-called “wrench attacks,” so named because of their brutish techniques, have become a growing concern in the world of digital currency, as more investors store sensitive information on physical devices, instead of digitally, in an effort to avoid hackers.
The trend has become especially troubling in France, where several prominent crypto entrepreneurs have been targeted in the past few months. In January, the father of a crypto influencer was found in the trunk of a car, bound and covered in gasoline, after the family was attacked at their home in eastern France, according to French media reports.
A few weeks later, the founder of French cryptocurrency company was abducted from his home and had one of his fingers cut off by his captors.
The main suspect in the New York case had come a long way to the NoLIta townhouse, which was recently listed for rent at $75,000 a month.
Mr. Woeltz grew up in Paducah, Ky., a small town about 140 miles from Nashville, according to an interview he gave to The Paducah Sun, a local newspaper, in 2020. He said after he graduated from the University of Kentucky, he moved west and began to invest in Silicon Valley startups.
His tech career appeared to take off quickly. In 2018, a John Woeltz was part of a winning team at ETHGlobal San Francisco hackathon, according to a post by the organization. He and his teammates built a robot that could cast absentee ballots for college students.
In 2020, Mr. Woeltz gave $10,000 to Sprocket, a nonprofit that sought to bring tech companies to the Paducah area, according to the interview with The Sun. At the time, Mr. Woeltz said he was the managing director of Silicon River Capital, an investment fund focused on blockchain technology.
“When I grew up in Paducah, there just wasn’t a clear path for me locally in tech,” Mr. Woeltz said in the interview. “After graduating from UK, I packed my bags and headed for Silicon Valley, because that’s what you had to do then to succeed in the industry.”
In recent years, Kentucky has become a player in the cryptocurrency mining industry, and Mr. Woeltz was tapped to join a working group under its state office of technology.
The group was set up by Kentucky lawmakers to use blockchain technology to protect natural gas pipelines, telecommunications and other infrastructure, according to its 2024 annual report. But Mr. Woeltz’s interactions with the group in recent years were limited. In interviews with The New York Times, two participants said that Mr. Woeltz served only as an advisory member.
Maia Coleman, Tracey Tully, Jefferson Siegel and Matthew Haag contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Chelsia Rose Marcius is a criminal justice reporter for The Times, covering the New York Police Department.
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