(Bloomberg) — Two men accused of kidnapping and torturing an Italian tourist in an attempt to force him to turn over access to his cryptocurrency accounts pleaded not guilty to an indictment charging them with first-degree kidnapping.

The defendants, John Woeltz and William Duplessie, made their pleas before New York State Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro in Manhattan on Wednesday and were held without bail pending another appearance in July. Assistant District Attorney Sarah Khan asked Carro to keep the two men in prison, while their attorneys requested they be released on $1 million bail packages.

The two were arrested after the victim, severely injured and barefoot, escaped from the Prince Street townhouse where he was allegedly being held on May 23 and flagged down a traffic officer. The case comes amidst a spate of crimes targeting high-profile crypto investors and executives, including an attempted kidnapping of family members of the chief executive of French crypto exchange Paymium last month.

Duplessie’s attorney, Sanford Talkin, argued that his client voluntarily surrendered and is not a risk of flight. He said prosecutors’ allegations that the victim was held and tortured are “entirely false” and that there are videos showing the victim smoking crack, being involved in a “sex orgy” and “having the time of his life.”

Khan said the victim was friends with the defendants for several years and eventually introduced them to each other. All three were involved in cryptocurrency and several months ago, the defendants allegedly persuaded the victim to travel to a location outside of Manhattan where they convinced him to turn over his devices as well as a passkey, depriving him of access to “a substantial amount of money.” The victim left voluntarily and months later the pair invited him to another meeting in Manhattan.

“During this time he felt threatened by them,” Khan said. “He gave them more electronic devices and he felt that if he didn’t, bad things would happen to him and his family.”

The victim then went home, but came back on May 6 in response to threats from the defendants. He was then captive, his phone was taken away and he was constantly watched, Khan said. He was allegedly pistol whipped and cut with a small chainsaw, and the defendants arranged for him to be photographed in “various poses and acts to create the impression he was not being held against his will.” He was not allowed to leave without an escort, she said, but on May 23, the victim finally escaped, barefooted, and “made a desperate run to the first uniformed officer he saw.”    

The victim received medical treatment and has never received any of his money back, Khan said. His account has been corroborated by other sources, she said, and a search warrant executed on the residence where he was allegedly held led to the discovery of a loaded pistol and a chainsaw, as well as a photograph of one of the defendants placing a gun to the victim’s head and another photo of him tied to a wheelchair.  

Prosecutors are still reviewing numerous devices that were recovered from the location, including about 30 cell phones and laptops and another 30 storage devices, she said.

“He came and went as he pleased,” Talkin said, noting that a dog walker told them the victim would take regular strolls with him. Talkin also said the defense has obtained surveillance videos of the victim hanging outside of a nearby eyeglass store 36 hours before he left the residence where he was laughing, smoking and talking with passerby.

“The story that he is selling just doesn’t make sense,” Talkin said.

The alleged victim was “out and about in the neighborhood throughout the time he was here in New York,” Woletz’s attorney, Wayne Gossell, said. “He was at church, he was at clubs, he was at dinner.”

Khan said that “someone in defendants’ circle” is selectively leaking videos to combat the prosecutors’ allegations and urged the judge to review the evidence in the case before making a decision on bail, saying they have evidence of the victim being lit on fire and that “victims of abuse are not always going to act in a way that we expect people to do.” There is evidence that the defendants sometimes poured tequila on the victim and set him ablaze before putting the flames out, sometimes by urinating on him, which “shows the severity of things that were going on in that house.”

Prosecutors have also been told by other law enforcement agencies that this is not the first time that these defendants have held people against their will, and that there are least two other alleged victims in other locations.

Carro declined to set bail after Wednesday’s hearing, saying he wants to review the grand jury minutes. He set a status conference for July 15.

–With assistance from Olga Kharif.

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