2nd crypto bigwig in SoHo torture case to surrender, sources say
A Swiss crypto millionaire sought for questioning in the gruesome torture of an Italian trader in SoHo will surrender to the NYPD this week, sources said Sunday — as a priest sprinkled holy water on the property.
The Euro exec became a person of interest in the case after the arrest of Kentucky crypto king John Woeltz on Friday for allegedly holding wealthy trader Michael Vanlentino Teofrasto Carturan inside a Prince Street apartment and torturing him for his Bitcoin password, authorities said.
Woeltz and his assistant, 24-year-old Beatrice Folchi, were charged in the case, but Folchi was later released when Manhattan prosecutors declined to file charges pending further investigation.
5 John Woeltz is charged with kidnapping and torturing a wealthy Italian crypto trader inside a SoHo apartment.
David Burns
The second sought exec's lawyers are now arranging for his own surrender, law-enforcement sources told The Post. The man is co-founder of a Swiss trading firm.
Meanwhile, a priest at the Basilica of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral, a Catholic church across the street from the alleged SoHo torture pad, came out Sunday to pour holy water on the steps of the property.
'Given what's been happening in there, the things they're saying happened in there, I thought it was a good idea,' the priest told The Post.
The torture case rattled others in the quiet Lower Manhattan neighborhood, too.
'I still can't believe it,' said a neighbor who asked to be identified only as Samba. 'It doesn't make any sense that you could keep somebody hostage for a week and torture them in this neighborhood.
5 The victim was allegedly held for more than a week in this SoHo apartment and brutally tortured.
Paul Martinka
5 Italian beauty Beatrice Folchi, Woeltz's assistant, was charged with kidnapping but later released by prosecutors.
Khristina Narizhnaya/NY Post
'It's a very quiet street. At night especially it's very quite around here,' the local said. 'You would think that you would hear something. You would think that the people from the church here would have heard something.'
Police said Carturan, who is reportedly a trader from Turin worth $30 million, was lured to the apartment and brutalized for his password. He was allegedly tied to a chair, tazed with his feet in a bucket of water, pistol-whipped and had had his legs and arms cut with a chainsaw during the weeks-long ordeal.
Sources said he was also urinated on and dangled from the top of a staircase in the home.
The battered captive was finally able to escape Friday when his captors were distracted.
Woeltz was arraigned Saturday on kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, assault and criminal possession of a weapon charges and ordered held without bail.
5 Woeltz was arraigned on kidnapping, assault and imprisonment charges and ordered held without bail Saturday.
Michael Nagle
5 Folchi told The Post she was 'not arrested' and would only speak through a lawyer.
Khristina Narizhnaya/NY Post
Sources said the wealthy Kentuckian owns a private jet and a chopper, as well a 150-acre farm in the Bluegrass State valued at more than $860,000, all part of his lucrative crypto empire.
Folchi was charged with kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment before she was cut loose.
She told The Post on Saturday that she was 'not arrested' and would only speak through a lawyer.
Sources said Carturan was being treated at Bellevue Hospital.
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