NEW YORK — The two men charged in an alleged kidnapping and torture case in SoHo have pleaded not guilty to charges against them on Wednesday.
John Woeltz, 37, and William Duplessie, 32, who stand accused of torturing a man in a plush Manhattan townhouse to secure his Bitcoin password, have entered pleas of not guilty to counts of kidnapping, assault, and coercion associated with the alleged incident in a luxury SoHo property to extract his cryptocurrency.
Judge Gregory Carro ordered them to remain held without bail through their next appearance July 15
Prosecutor Sarah Kahn presented the judge with a photograph, which she claimed showed the supposed victim engulfed in flames. She asserted that the defendants would douse him in tequila, ignite him, and then extinguish the fire—at times by urinating on him.
Kahn stated that Woeltz and Duplessie inflicted further harm on the victim by pistol-whipping him, cutting him with a small chainsaw, and employing a variety of other tools during the ordeal.
She said prosecutors have had conversations with other, unnamed, law enforcement agencies that indicated Woeltz and Duplessie have tortured people before. She did not elaborate.
The defense pushed back, saying there is video of the alleged victim “having the time of his life,” and engaging in activity at odds with having been tortured.
The defense attorneys said they obtained a different video from an eyeglass store taken 36 hours before the alleged victim left the townhouse that purportedly shows him smoking a cigarette by himself on the street.
“The story that he is selling just doesn’t make sense,” defense attorney Sam Talkin, who represents Duplessie, told the judge.
Prosecutors have not seen the video and Kahn said, “Victims of abuse are not always going to ask in a way that we expect people to do.”
A search of the townhouse turned up cocaine, a saw, chicken wire, body armor, night vision goggles, ammunition and Polaroid photos of the victim with a gun pointed to his head, according to prosecutors.
(ABC News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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