Mama Hooch rapist brothers Danny and Roberto Jaz challenge their convictions and sentences

RNZ News

5 days ago

Danny (left) and Roberto Jaz were convicted in 2023 of drugging and violating more than 20 women.
Photo:
NZ Herald / George Heard
Two Christchurch brothers who used their family's bar and restaurant to drug and rape young women are challenging their convictions and sentences
Danny and Roberto Jaz were convicted in 2023 of drugging and violating more than 20 women at the bar Mama Hooch and neighbouring restaurant Venuti between 2015 and 2018.
A High Court appeal was heard by Justice Cameron Mander at Christchurch on Monday, but reporting of the matter was suppressed until 4pm on Tuesday as well as the reasons for that suppression.
Roberto Jaz was jailed for 17 years, and his older brother Danny was jailed for 16-and-a-half years in August 2023 by Judge Paul Mabey, who described their attacks as predatory and heartless.
The pair accumulated almost
70 convictions between them
for sexual violation, drink spiking, stupefying and making an intimate visual recording.
Judge Mabey imposed non-parole periods of half their sentences.
A month later the brothers
lodged appeals against their convictions and sentences
.
RNZ is now able to report on that High Court hearing.
Jaz brothers' lawyers Ron Mansfield KC (left) and James Carruthers.
Photo:
Stuff/Chris Skelton
Lawyer for the Jaz brothers Ron Mansfield KC told the court his clients did not get a fair hearing in the District Court and there was a significant miscarriage of justice.
"There is a significant and concerning danger and, in my submission, an obvious one in putting apparent efficiency of process over and above the interests of justice and standard principles of natural justice in any case, let alone one as serious as this one. That is what the appellants submit that this judge has done," he said.
The trial was complex and involved a substantial number of charges and complainants alleging very serious offending, Mansfield said.
"In effect, the judge simplistically ran roughshod over the defence cases in relation to each grouping of charges. Beyond that he failed to consider all relevant evidence relating to identified charges resulting independently in miscarriages of justice in relation to those specific charges."
Lawyer for the Crown Charlotte Brook said there was a wealth of evidence against the Jaz brothers and disputed Mansfield's claims of complexity or a miscarriage of justice.
"They had access to drugs, their positions at the bar meant they had access to the drinks being served, they were well known for handing out free drinks at the bar, which a number of witnesses said sometimes tasted awful and they didn't want to drink them. There was the internal propensity evidence - the sheer number of victims who the Crown alleged to have been stupefied suggests that the appellants had a propensity to do so," she said.
There was also the evidence of the brothers' own statements to each other in their group chats and to others, where they talked openly about administering drugs to people, Brook said.
"Their description of their preferred drug as 'bitter water' is consistent with the evidence of witnesses who said that sometimes they'd be given a free drink and it would taste so horrible, so bitter that they didn't want to drink it," she said.
Lawyers for the Crown Andrew McRae (left) and Charlotte Brook.
Photo:
Stuff/Chris Skelton
Mansfield argued the judge oversimplified points and failed to consider others, an example being the evidence complainants gave alleging they were drugged.
"There was a lot more to this case than the judge considered applicable when he came to looking at the issues, such as whether the complainants were stupefied, or somehow rendered, so they that could not consent to some sexual assault," he said.
Many of the complainants acknowledged they had consumed substantial quantities of alcohol either prior to going to the premises or while at the premises, and in some cases had used controlled drugs too, Mansfield said.
"When the witnesses said in the lower court that 'look I've been drunk before' or 'I've used drugs before and this wasn't like any of those occasions' the judge would simply say and he said it a number of times: 'the answer is the evidence'. What he didn't do was really query that response in light of the alcohol and or controlled drugs that they'd actually consumed against their age, weight and relative inexperience with consumption of both at that particular time, let alone the realities of both alcohol and drug consumption," he said.
Brook disputed Mansfield's characterisation the trial was complex or there was a miscarriage of justice.
"Of course it was serious, of course it was long, but the Crown says that doesn't necessarily mean it was complex. None of the charges were genuinely novel or complex in and of themselves... most charges were able to be dealt with quite briefly only a couple of paragraphs," she said.
Mansfield said the trial judge also erred in not allowing closing arguments, rendering the trial unfair.
"In my submission really it was the opportunity that all parties required in the District Court, that's the prosecution and defence, to a greater extent the defence... the only opportunity to present the defendants' case in relation to each grouping of charges was by way of the closing addresses," he said.
Justice Mander reserved his decision.
Jaz brothers' lawyer Ron Mansfield KC.
Photo:
Stuff/Chris McKeen
Police began investigating the Jaz brothers in July 2018 after two women reported being drugged and sexually assaulted at the venues.
At a judge-alone trial in 2023, the men were convicted of 69 charges relating to 23 victims, mostly women aged 18 to 24.
The sentences brought an end to five years of complex and detailed investigation work and a drawn-out prosecution process.
Survivors told the brothers during sentencing that their crimes had left them
feeling damaged, fearful and forever changed
.
Lead investigator Detective Inspector Scott Anderson praised the victims for coming forward and seeing the protracted process through.
"Their journey through the process has not been easy, however, because of their courage they have made our community a safer place," he said.
Anderson said the men had preyed on their victims in a disturbing way.
"One of their sole purposes was actually using the bar for their own gratification and servicing what they thought was quite all right for them, which it obviously wasn't," he said.
"It just goes to show how premeditated they were in targeting vulnerable people, in particular young girls, to do what they wanted with."
The Jaz brothers' father Michael Jaz owned both Mama Hooch and Venuti. Both venues have since closed and the company Jaz Holdings Limited was
put into liquidation in August 2023
.