HARTFORD, Conn. — A St. Louis man pleaded guilty Oct. 26 in federal court in Hartford to a robbery conspiracy charge in a 2024 plot to steal Bitcoin from a man whose parents were later kidnapped in Danbury, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

Martel Williams, 27, of St. Louis, Missouri, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery, according to the U.S. attorney's office for the District of Connecticut. The charge carries up to 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors said that on Aug. 25, 2024, Danbury police arrested six Florida men involved in a violent carjacking in which the two people in the car were beaten and kidnapped. The victims are the parents of a person who took part in the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin, according to prosecutors.

The people who organized the scheme first recruited Williams and two associates from St. Louis, prosecutors said. Between about Aug. 21 and Aug. 24, 2024, Williams and others traveled to Connecticut, rented cars and gathered supplies including air rifles, walkie-talkies and a laptop computer.

Over two days, according to prosecutors, the group stalked the target and his parents, waiting for a chance to force their way into the family's home, threaten the target and demand that he move the stolen cryptocurrency into accounts controlled by the organizers.

Worried that they had been recorded by home security cameras, and frustrated with the plan and a lack of communication from their co-conspirators, Williams and his associates left Connecticut, prosecutors said. The Florida crew arrived soon after to carry out the plan.

Williams was arrested July 17. He is free pending sentencing, for which no date has been set.

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