In court now, even with all his money, he doesn't look too happy: https://nypost.com/2025/05/30/us-news/h ... ture-case/
He Was Urinated On, Cut with a Saw and Forced to Smoke Crack: What Police Say Happened to Tourist Lured to N.Y.C. — and Why
https://people.com/john-woeltz-william- ... t-11744534
The moral of the story: Never go into someone's house who you don't know very well by yourself.A second cryptocurrency investor has been arrested and charged in connection with the alleged weeks-long torture of an Italian tourist in an upscale Manhattan apartment, according to reports.
William Duplessie was taken into custody on Tuesday in New York City and charged with kidnapping, assault, unlawful imprisonment and criminal possession of a weapon, according 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 last Friday —after their alleged victim, a 28-year-old Italian tourist, reportedly escaped from the Manhattan apartment and ran to the nearest police officer he could find outside.
PEOPLE previously reported that Woeltz, 37, was charged with two counts of second-degree assault and one charge each of kidnapping, imprisonment and criminal possession of a firearm.
The New York Police Department said in a statement to PEOPLE that the two cryptocurrency investors are alleged to have been holding the Italian man captive in a Manhattan apartment while torturing him over the course of two weeks in an effort to get him to give up the password to his Bitcoin account. The AP and NBC 4 reported that the victim was known to the two suspects, and described their relationship as a business partnership gone sour.
Over the course of two weeks, Woeltz and Duplessie allegedly tortured their victim in a number of ways, according to the AP and NBC 4, including bounding him by the wrists, shocking him with electrical wires, cutting his leg with a saw, urinating on him, and pistol-whipping him. On one occasion, the man reportedly told police his kidnappers dangled him by the feet from the eight-bedroom, six-story apartment’s top flight of stairs. On another occasion, the victim reportedly told police he was forced to smoke out of a crack pipe.
