Crypto Investor Charged With Kidnapping and Torturing Man for Weeks

A 37-year-old cryptocurrency investor was arrested and charged on Friday evening with kidnapping a man and torturing him for weeks inside a luxury townhouse in downtown Manhattan, the police said.

The crypto investor, John Woeltz, was taken into custody on Friday after the man managed to escape the townhouse and notify the police. Mr. Woeltz was charged on Friday evening with assault, kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment and criminal possession of a gun.

Another person, Beatrice Folchi, was also arrested on Friday and charged with kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment, though her connection to Mr. Woeltz was not immediately clear.

Many details of the violent, weekslong episode remained murky on Saturday, including how Mr. Woeltz and the man knew each other and what had brought them to New York City.

But on Friday just after 9:30 a.m., the man, a 28-year-old from Italy, ran out of the townhouse in the NoLIta neighborhood of Manhattan and toward a traffic agent nearby, according to a law enforcement official.

The man, whose name has not been publicly released by the authorities, told the police that he had arrived in the city from Italy on May 6 and had gone to the townhouse. Mr. Woeltz, who is originally from Kentucky, had been renting the eight-bedroom home for at least $30,000 a month, the official said.

The man told the police that when he arrived at the house, Mr. Woeltz stole his passport, tied him up and held him captive for three weeks, during which time Mr. Woeltz tortured and assaulted him until his escape on Friday morning, the official said.

Police officers from the Fifth Precinct arrived at the townhouse shortly after the man’s escape on Friday and took Mr. Woeltz into custody. The man was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition, the police said.

Inside the home, the police found Polaroid pictures showing the man bound and being assaulted, the official said. They also found a gun and several other items used for torture inside the house.

Two butlers who worked at the home were also present and agreed on Friday to be interviewed by the police, the official said.

The episode in the upscale Manhattan neighborhood comes on the heels of two other imprisonment cases that have shaken the New York region this spring. Last week, prosecutors in southern New Jersey charged a couple with imprisoning an 18-year-old girl for seven years and locking her in a dog cage. In April, a 32-year-old man who had been held captive in a room by his father and stepmother escaped after setting fire to their home.

Mr. Woeltz’s arrest also follows a spate of jarring attacks against high-ranking crypto executives in the United States and elsewhere in which the victims and their families have been kidnapped or violently assaulted for ransom.