MANHATTAN (CN) — The two men accused of kidnapping an Italian tourist and torturing him for weeks inside a luxury New York City townhouse in pursuit of his cryptocurrency funds are set to be released on a pair of million-dollar bond packages, a judge ruled Wednesday, reversing his previous denial after reviewing evidence from both parties in the case.
John Woeltz and William Duplessie are charged with kidnapping and assaulting Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan, who escaped barefoot after three weeks of being held and abused at 38 Prince Street. Prosecutors say the pair pistol-whipped him, cut him with a small chainsaw and set him on fire with tequila before putting out the flames by urinating on him.
Defense attorneys claim the violence was part of a “fraternity-like hazing” ritual.
“He was a resident at the townhouse. He wasn’t kidnapped. And the truth is he was free to leave whenever he wanted,” Wayne Gosnell Jr., who represents Woeltz, said at Wednesday’s bail hearing.
“The house was like a long-running frat party,” and Carturan was a pledge being hazed, the Clayman Rosenberg Kirshner & Linder attorney said.
Later, he added: “It is a frat house with essentially unlimited funds.”
Defense attorneys said Carturan, 29, wanted to work with Duplessie, 33, and Woeltz, a 37-year-old cryptocurrency investor from Kentucky whose net worth is estimated to exceed $100 million.
“He wanted to be part of the lifestyle — which was quite a lifestyle,” Duplessie’s attorney Sanford Talkin said.
Videos sent to Judge Gregory Carro purportedly show drug-fueled orgies, pranks and the defendants buying luxury clothing and eyeglasses for Carturan, who was, Gosnell repeated several times, “all smiles” during sex acts that were “very, very consensual.”
“Could some of the hazing have gone over the line? Maybe. But that’s a trial issue,” Gosnell said.
Prosecutors pushed to keep the men detained pending trial.
Assistant District Attorney Sarah Khan rejected the defendants’ characterization of the atmosphere at the $75,000-a-month townhouse and argued the case reflects a “pattern of control and violence.”
She cited text messages from Woeltz’s assistant showing Carturan was constantly monitored, forced to leave his phone in the basement and had to request supervised phone access.
At one point, a witness expressed concern Carturan got out because someone had left the door open, only to be reassured: “Don’t worry, I’m watching him.”
“And then they laugh about it,” Khan said.
She pointed to evidence that Carturan was sobbing and hyperventilating during his stay on Prince Street, and had “no more life in his eyes” as he stared off into space.
“Even if the victim calls it hazing,” Khan said, “it doesn’t comport with the fraternity conduct that happens in colleges — and sometimes even that is illegal.”
Citing a “manifesto” written by the defendants to justify theft, prosecutors say Woeltz and Duplessie were plotting to rob foreigners’ cryptocurrency accounts using tactics like hacking and psychological warfare, slowly gaining their targets’ trust and then “striking with full force, covertly stealing their cryptocurrency.”
Khan said the men borrowed intelligence community practices like pressure, deceit, monitoring, drugs, violence and sex to target Carturan, threatening him and his family.
“Their conduct is meant to keep him off-balance, with the threat of further violence,” she said.
As for the description of Carturan smiling and laughing in videos, Khan said that it only speaks to the manipulation at hand.
“It’s bizarre. He’s being tased. He has a gun to his head. Those are not normal reactions,” she said. “It appears that this is the use of intermittent violence to keep the victim unregulated, and so his reaction to smile, to laugh, is to … appease the defendants.”
“He played along,” she continued. “They told him not to show fear, to be a man.”
Carro offered that he believes credibility is an issue in the case, although he was unable to open all of the video files he received.
“There are some credibility things here in what I viewed. I don’t know, there’s not a whole lot of independent corroboration to what was said,” the judge said.
The specifics of the bail packages, which come with GPS monitoring for both defendants, are to be sorted out between the parties — but Carro was quick to shut down one form of payment.
“If you think the bondsman is going to take cryptocurrency, that will be a problem. I don’t think I will accept it,” the judge said.
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