A cryptocurrency investor from Kentucky was arrested in Manhattan on Friday after allegedly holding an Italian businessman captive for over two weeks in a luxury SoHo apartment.
John Woeltz, 37, has been charged with two counts of assault, kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, and criminal possession of a weapon, the NYPD says.
A bloody and bruised 28-year-old businessman, who has not been publicly identified, allegedly escaped Woeltz’s Prince Street apartment hours before he believed he would be killed. The man approached a nearby traffic agent, who then called police.
The businessman claimed he arrived in New York from Italy on May 6 and went to Woeltz’s apartment, where he was tied up and then tortured, according to the NYPD.
Police entered Woeltz’s apartment and reportedly found Polaroids depicting the man being tied up with electrical wire, tortured, and bound to a chair with a gun pointed to his head. The Polaroids were likely used to extort money from either the victim or his family in Italy, police said.
Officers also found guns and several torture devices in the apartment, reportedly rented for $30,000 to $40,000 a month.
The businessman alleged his horrific abuse included being bound with an electric cord, tasered while his feet were in water, pistol-whipped, forced to take cocaine, and threatened with having his limbs cut off with an electric chainsaw.
Police found no other victims in the apartment.
Officials also arrested Beatrice Folchi, 24, of Manhattan, on Saturday, on kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment charges stemming from the incident. Folchi’s alleged role or relationship to Woeltz is unclear.
Police are still searching for another male suspect.
While a motive for the incident remains unclear, residents are shocked by the alleged crimes.
“This is definitely the strangest thing I’ve seen in my time here,” Ciaran Tully, who works across the street from Woeltz’s apartment building, told the New York Post about seeing a barefoot Woeltz being detained in a white bathrobe. “Normally, this is a pretty quiet block.”
“I just can’t believe stuff like this would happen in 2025 in New York of all places. This is our borough, our neighborhood. We just have to … we have to be careful,” Midtown resident Kareem Hakemy told CBS News.
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