NEW YORK — A cryptocurrency investor has been arrested and charged with kidnapping a man and keeping him locked up for weeks in an upscale Manhattan apartment, where authorities say he was beaten, shocked and led to believe that his family was in danger if he didn’t give up his Bitcoin password.
John Woeltz, 37, was arrested Friday night after the victim escaped from the eight-bedroom town house and flagged down a traffic officer on the street for help, according to prosecutors.
Woeltz was arraigned Saturday on charges of kidnapping, assault, unlawful imprisonment and criminal possession of a firearm, court records show. He was ordered held without bail, a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney’s office confirmed Saturday.
His lawyer, Wayne Gosnell, said Saturday in an email that he had no comment.
The 28-year-old victim arrived in New York City from Italy in early May, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation and did so on condition of anonymity.
It’s not clear how or if the two knew each other, but the district attorney’s office said in an email that prosecutor Michael Mattson told a judge Saturday that the victim, whose name has not been released, was abducted on May 6.
Mattson said others were involved in the scheme to empty the victim’s Bitcoin wallet. That includes a person referred to in court records as an “unapprehended male.”
The victim said he was bound by the wrists and tortured for weeks inside the apartment. His captors, according to prosecutors, drugged him, used electric wires to shock him, hit him in the head with a firearm and, at one point, carried him to the top of a flight of stairs where they dangled him over a ledge and threatened to kill him if he didn’t share his Bitcoin password.
Believing that he was about to be shot, the victim was able to escape Friday after telling Woeltz that he would give up his password, which was stored on his laptop in another room. When the suspect turned his back, Mattson said, the victim ran out of the apartment.
The victim was taken to a hospital and treated for injuries that Mattson said were consistent with his descriptions of being bound and assaulted.
A search of the town house turned up a trove of evidence, Mattson said, including cocaine, a saw, chicken wire, body armor and night vision goggles, ammunition and polaroid photos of the victim with a gun pointed to his head.
Woeltz was ordered Saturday to surrender his passport. Prosecutors said he has the means to flee, including a private jet and a helicopter. He is due back in Manhattan criminal court next week.
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Yamat reported from Las Vegas. Associated Press writers Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, and Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, contributed to this report.