Two men accused of torturing an Italian entrepreneur in a luxurious house in New York City to obtain their cryptocurrency declared themselves innocent of kidnapping, assault and coercion charges, since the prosecutors said there are other possible victims and even shared a photo that allegedly represented the victim over fire.
John Woeltz and William Dupplessie, both handcuffs and in monkeys, were prosecuted in a Chamber of the Manhattan court on Wednesday after a large jury accused them of a dozen charges.
Judge Gregory Carro ordered them to remain detained without bail through their next appearance in court on July 15.
John Woeltz, 37, appears for the reading of positions in the Criminal Court of Manhattan after he was arrested for allegedly having an Italian tourist as a hostage in an apparent scheme to steal the fortune of the cryptographic currency of man in New York, on May 24, 2025.
Curtis means, pool through Reuters, file
William Dupplessie, accused of kidnapping and torture for trying to steal a man’s Bitcoin password, appears in Manhattan Criminal Court, May 30, 2025, in New York.
Jefferson Siegel/The New York Times through AP, Pool
A prosecutor, Sarah Kahn, shared graphic details of the alleged abuse during the hearing. He showed the judge a photo that, according to her, represented the alleged victim on fire and said that the defendants poured tequila about him, light it and then light the fire, sometimes urinating on him.
Woeltz and Duplessie gun the victim with a gun, cut it with a small chainsaw and used other instruments as part of the torture, Kahn said.
She said prosecutors have had conversations with other unidentified police agencies that indicated that Woeltz and Duplessie have tortured people before. She did not elaborate.
The defense backed away, saying that there is a video of the alleged victim “to have the best moment of his life” and participate in activities in disagreement with having been tortured.
The defense lawyers said they obtained a different video of a shop of glasses taken 36 hours before the alleged victim left the house that allegedly shows him a cigarette alone in the street.
“The story he is selling makes no sense,” defense lawyer Sam Talkin, who represents Duplessie, told the judge.
The house of the city of Manhattan where William Dupplessie and John Woeltz allegedly tortured an Italian man for weeks in an attempt to access his cryptocurrency wallet is shown in New York, on May 29, 2025.
David Dee Delgado/Reuters
Prosecutors have not seen the video and Kahn said: “Victims of abuse will not always act in a way that we hope people do.”
Woeltz and Dupplessie were arrested last month. The accusation, which was revealed on Wednesday, alleges that they kept man against his will “with the intention of terrorizing him” and assaulted it with a chainsaw, a gun and a cattle production.
His lawyers previously refused to comment on the case.
Prosecutors have said that Woeltz and Dupplessie attracted the alleged victim, a 28 -year -old man who is not identified in the accusation, to New York to the allegedly threatening to kill his family.
The man told the Police that he arrived in New York on May 6 and went to the House of Eight Rooms in Woeltz, where he was supposedly tortured by his Bitcoin password, according to a complaint.
After more than two weeks, the police said the man escaped from the house on May 23 and ran to a traffic control officer in search of help. Woeltz and Dupplessie were subsequently arrested for charges that include kidnapping, assault and illegal imprisonment.
