A second cryptocurrency investor has been arrested and charged in reference to the alleged weeks-long torture of an Italian vacationer in an upscale Manhattan house, in accordance to reviews.
William Duplessie was taken into custody on Tuesday in New York Metropolis and charged with kidnapping, assault, illegal imprisonment and prison possession of a weapon, in accordance to The Associated Press, The New York Times, and NBC 4.
The 32-year-old cryptocurrency investor surrendered to police after his alleged co-conspirator and fellow cryptocurrency investor John Woeltz was taken into custody final Friday —after their alleged sufferer, a 28-year-old Italian vacationer, reportedly escaped from the Manhattan house and ran to the closest police officer he might discover outdoors.
PEOPLE beforehand reported that Woeltz, 37, was charged with two counts of second-degree assault and one cost every of kidnapping, imprisonment and prison possession of a firearm.
The New York Police Division mentioned in a press release to PEOPLE that the 2 cryptocurrency buyers are alleged to have been holding the Italian man captive in a Manhattan house whereas torturing him over the course of two weeks in an effort to get him to surrender the password to his Bitcoin account. The AP and NBC 4 reported that the sufferer was recognized to the 2 suspects, and described their relationship as a enterprise partnership gone bitter.
Yuki Iwamura/AP
A spokesperson with the Manhattan District Legal professional’s Workplace and Woeltz’s legal professional, Wayne Gosnell, haven’t responded to PEOPLE’s request for remark. It was not instantly clear whether or not Duplessie had an legal professional representing him.
Over the course of two weeks, Woeltz and Duplessie allegedly tortured their sufferer in plenty of methods, in accordance to the AP and NBC 4, together with bounding him by the wrists, stunning him with electrical wires, reducing his leg with a noticed, urinating on him, and pistol-whipping him. On one event, the person reportedly instructed police his kidnappers dangled him by the toes from the eight-bedroom, six-story house’s prime flight of stairs. On one other event, the sufferer reportedly instructed police he was compelled to smoke out of a crack pipe.
Yuki Iwamura/AP
New York Metropolis Police mentioned in a press release over the weekend that the sufferer alleged he had been “routinely assaulted throughout his captivity” earlier than lastly agreeing to surrender his password final Friday morning. When the 2 males went to get his laptop computer, the sufferer was allegedly in a position to escape and run out of the house. In accordance to the AP, the sufferer, who has not been recognized, ran up to a visitors guard outdoors of the house and instructed him what occurred, main to a police response.
NBC 4 reported {that a} video taken by a bystander confirmed the sufferer was “raveled and shoeless” when he approached the visitors cop, begging for assist.
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Kava Gorna through AP
“The motive was over cash, they knew one another. However beneath no circumstance on this world you may have the precise to kidnap someone,” NYPD Chief of Division John Chell mentioned, in accordance to NBC 4.
Investigators discovered a Polaroid the suspects allegedly took, which seem to present the sufferer being tortured, The AP additionally reported. Police additionally found cocaine, hen wire, a noticed, physique armor, and ammunition contained in the Manhattan townhome from the place the sufferer allegedly escaped, which Woeltz was renting.
