The Italian businessman who was allegedly kidnapped and tortured in NYC for practically 3 weeks, wasn’t at all times in misery throughout that interval … in response to a weird video of him cooking crack in an air fryer.

TMZ obtained a 20-second clip, which seemingly illustrates a a lot completely different image of Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan‘s alleged captivity within the SoHo townhome the place police say John Woeltz and William Duplessie tortured him for 17 days. Within the video, Carturan seems to be tied across the chest to a wheelchair, however his palms are free and he is smiling and joking with a minimum of 3 different folks within the room.

Carturan — whose face we have blurred as a result of he is an alleged sufferer — is fidgeting with an air fryer on a desk, and you may hear a male voice say, “You are in a wheelchair cooking crack” … and another person says, “That is so whack.”

Then, somebody says, “This crack is gonna f***ing suck” and everybody within the room, together with Carturan, laughs. One other male voice says, “Do not get me within the crack video, bro!”

Here is what’s puzzling about this video … metadata reveals it was recorded Might 11 at 1:45 AM ET at Woeltz’s Prince Avenue handle. In line with the police, Woeltz lured Carturan to his place on Might 6, and held him till he managed to flee on Might 23.

Our legislation enforcement sources inform us Carturan was tortured and compelled to smoke crack whereas being filmed by his alleged captors … with the intention to blackmail him into turning over his password for his Bitcoin pockets value hundreds of thousands. We’re advised the suspects allegedly threatened to ship the footage to Carturan’s buyers if he did not present the password, however Carturan nonetheless refused to cough it up. All of that aligns with this video.

What’s unclear, although, is why Carturan could be in such a laughing and lighthearted temper 5 days after he was allegedly held. The video additionally reveals Woeltz and Duplessie weren’t the one ones within the townhome with Carturan. We have blurred the face of a person in a white sweater who was current — he is not Woeltz or Duplessie — plus, there are a minimum of 2 different male voices within the room.

In the meantime, Woeltz and Duplessie are being held with out bail on costs of kidnapping, assault, illegal imprisonment and felony possession of a weapon.

We reached out to attorneys for Duplessie and Woeltz. Duplessie’s lawyer had no remark and up to now no phrase again from Woeltz’s lawyer.