Warning: This article discusses rape and contains details that may disturb.
The two men who drugged dozens of women in Christchurch and then sexually assaulted many of them ran the bar where most of it happened.
Danny Jaz and his brother Roberto Jaz worked in Mama Hooch and restaurant Venuti where most of the drugging and sexual assaults took place.
The Jaz brothers went about years of horrifying offending against their customers and their own staff. They are now convicted on a total of 69 sex crimes and drugging charges.
Danny worked at Mama Hooch and Roberto was a chef at nearby restaurant Venuti in central Christchurch. It was at these two venues over a period of years the men targeted their young female customers, spiking their drinks and then often sexually assaulting or raping them.
- If you have more information, contact Juliet Speedy in confidence on juliet.speedy@wbd.com
The two men facilitated the planned and determined drugging of many young women to assault and violate them. Many of it happened in the bar and in the toilets, sometimes the women were taken to nearby Venuti when it was closed and sometimes it happened at Roberto's home.
A connection was also charged but acquitted on almost all allegations against him. A friend of the brothers also walked free.
The Crown told the court it was all a grand plan when they opened the bar in 2015 and named it Mama Hooch.
"A play on the term 'Hoochy Mama', defined by the Oxford Dictionary as a young woman, especially a promiscuous one or in a sexually provocative way," Crown prosecutor Andrew McRae said in his opening address.
There were initially 126 charges against the three men from dozens of complainants including their own staff. They would hire waitresses and prey on them.
Some of the worst assaults were on their own staff.
The WhatsApp messaging shown to the court, revealed, amidst the depraved behaviour, the hiring and targeting of their employees:
- Danny Jaz posts a photo: "new waitress boys"
- One of the acquitted men writes: "she is def worth a trip down chch"
- Roberto writes: "she's yours man"
- Before adding "You should have seen when she walked in. She wore a loose top no bra"
- And another saying: "New waitress boys, who wants it?"
- "She wants part time now while at Uni then full time"
- "And blow jobs for the boys on Sunday".
And a young woman they raped was a former staff member.
Danny Jaz planned it, writing to the group on WhatsApp: "Trial tomorrow night boys. Whos keen [sic]."
The offending happened throughout all the years the bar was open. The young female clients were fair game as far as the Jaz boys were concerned; commodities to be used and abused as they saw fit.
Danny, the oldest, would commonly offer the women free drinks that were spiked, before following them into the bar's toilet to assault and violate them. Or they would drug them and walk them down to Venuti where they'd give them more drugs and assault or rape them.
Years into Roberto and Danny's offending, things started to unravel for the Jaz brothers. They were getting a reputation.
And in July 2018, two brave young women, just teenagers, went to the police the morning after they were drugged and assaulted which led the police to start digging.
Media coverage around this saw many women previously ashamed and embarrassed come forward to the police.
And, ultimately, it ended in a two-month trial which found them guilty on almost every sex charge and many drugging charges. Finally, eight years after their offending started, the brothers were to pay the price for their predatory, criminal behaviour against so many young women in the prime of their lives.
And now the brothers are behind bars of a different kind, at Paparoa Men's Prison.
