Stuff Digital Edition

Hooch rapists long suspected of drink spiking

Crime Blair Ensor and Jake Kenny

The Mama Hooch rapists were part of a ‘‘Rat Pack-like group’’, and there were concerns they spiked drinks for a decade before they were caught drugging and sexually assaulting patrons of the now-infamous bar.

A woman who knew Danny and Roberto Jaz and worked in bars in Christchurch’s central city in the mid-2000s says she and her colleagues warned women to watch their drinks around the brothers.

She said she watched young women socialising with the pair quickly become very intoxicated. Some had to be carried out of a bar where she worked.

‘‘It never made any sense how after one or two drinks they were so incoherent.’’

There was speculation at the time the brothers were involved in drink-spiking, but no-one could prove it, the woman told Stuff.

She also heard stories of women who found themselves in cars or toilets having sex with either of the men, with little or no recollection of how they got there.

When the woman learned the Jaz brothers had been convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting numerous patrons of Mama Hooch recently she wasn’t surprised.

‘‘I’m just sickened by how long they were able to get away with it, and how brave the women who came forward were. I’m convinced this happened to other girls long before [the brothers] were caught. They just treated women like toilet paper.’’

When the woman knew the Jaz brothers, they were aged in their 20s, and worked at their family’s central city restaurant, Portofino.

They were good-looking, charming, charismatic and seemed well-connected – able to skip queues and get free drinks in bars due to friendships with bouncers and venue managers, she said.

Their close circle of friends, which she described as being ‘‘Rat Pack-like’’, included several eastern European men, one of whom was said to be the son of a senior mafia figure, and who seemed to have regular access to drugs, like ecstasy and cocaine.

‘‘All the girls wanted to party with them. Everyone wanted to be friends with them.’’

But with the popularity came a sense of entitlement, she said. ‘‘They [acted like they] were better than everyone else. They just thought they were untouchable.

‘‘The boys were always talking about having girls throw themselves at them, and how many girls they’d had sex with. I think . . . the power got to them. They were treating girls like garbage. They were using the most foul, degrading terms to describe them.’’

A man who was mates with the Jazs recalled consuming a drink Danny Jaz had got for a female friend on a night out in about 2009. Within half an hour he was in the toilets vomiting.

‘‘I remember waking up and I was curled up in a ball beside the toilet. It made me think what would’ve happened to my friend if she got the drink.

‘‘I’m absolutely horrified that I knew these men.’’

Another woman who knew the brothers in the same period said they were ‘‘absolutely disgusting’’ from the moment she met them.

The brothers and their inner circle made a point of befriending young women and would always use ‘‘really sick sexual talk’’.

During the major investigation into the Jaz brothers’ Mama Hooch-linked offending, police identified dozens of women who believed they’d had their drinks spiked at the bar from 2015 to 2018. Some had been sexually assaulted.

It now appears there were many more victims. Since their crimes were made public, Stuff has learned of a raft of other suspected drink spikings at Mama Hooch which weren’t reported to police.

Police have also been contacted by people about other incidents at Mama Hooch.

‘‘Police are supporting these people and assessing the information they’ve provided,’’ Detective Inspector Scott Anderson said yesterday.

Danny and Roberto Jaz were born in Australia, attending secondary school on the Gold Coast. The Jaz family moved to Auckland in 2001, then to Christchurch two years later, and opened Portofino. Post-quake, they set up Venuti, then, in 2015, Mama Hooch.

The brothers have been convicted of dozens of crimes, including rape, sexual violation, sexual assaults, and various druggings. They will be sentenced in August.

News

en-nz

2023-06-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-06-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuff.pressreader.com/article/281663964390891

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