Mama Hooch: Fate of rapist drink spiking brothers Danny and Roberto Jaz to be decided at sentencing today in Christchurch

Brothers Danny Jaz (left), and Roberto Jaz will today be sentenced on a raft of charges. Photo / Pool

The “arrogant, entitled” Mama Hooch rapists - brothers Danny and Roberto Jaz - will today be sentenced for their years of prolific and predatory abuse of women at their family bar and both face up to 20 years in prison for their litany of crimes.

Sentencing will begin in the Christchurch District Court at 10am before Judge Paul Mabey, who presided over the sex-offending siblings three-month trial earlier this year.

The Herald will have ongoing coverage of the proceedings throughout the day.

Danny Jaz, 40 and Roberto Jaz, 38, were convicted of 69 charges between them including rape, sexual violation, indecent assault, stupefying, disabling, making intimate recordings of women without their knowledge or consent and supplying illicit drugs.

The drugging and assaults took place at Mama Hooch and Venuti - a bar and restaurant owned by their father Michael Jaz, between 2015 and 2018.

Judge Paul Mabey KC. Photo / NZME

Danny Jaz was a duty bar manager at Mama Hooch and Roberto Jaz was the chef at Venuti.

Both venues have been shut down since the men were charged.

Their downfall came after two 18-year-old women went to the police and reported they had been drugged and sexually assaulted at Venuti by Roberto Jaz.

The complaint led to dozens more women coming forward and a major police investigation dubbed Operation Sinatra.

The Jaz brothers were arrested and charged in 2018 and went on trial in February this year.

They had elected trial by jury but three days before the process was set to begin they changed their position and sought trial by Judge Mabey alone.

Two other men were charged alongside the Jaz brothers. One was acquitted on all sex and drug charges except one of offering to supply a Class B drug. He was discharged without conviction. The other was acquitted on a single sexual assault charge.

Both were granted permanent name suppression.

In July Judge Mabey released a 162-page judgment with the reason for each verdict.

Throughout, he lambasts the predatory brothers saying they had a consistent and established propensity to “show a sexual interest in, and to target for sexual purposes, patrons and staff of Mama Hooch”.

Rapist brothers Danny (centre) and Roberto (right) Jaz at the bar Mama Hooch where they drink spiked and sexually assaulted women. Photo / Facebook

Further, the siblings had an “arrogant, entitled and hubristic approach” to young women who came within their orbit and were “indifferent to their rights and indifferent to consent”.

He said Roberto Jaz used Venuti “as a venue for sexual contact, both consensual and non-consensual” and “as a place to drug females and offend against them without their consent or any possible reasonable belief in consent”.

Roberto Jaz had a “willingness to exploit females as playthings who exist for his benefit and whose rights for which he has complete disregard”, said the Judge.

Danny Jaz was equally indifferent to consent and Judge Mabey outlined a number of examples where he drugged women then “positioned himself in a way that enabled him to take the complainant into a toilet cubicle and commit a sexual assault”.

“He not only administered the drink for that purpose, he monitored her until such time as she and her friend had moved sufficiently forward in the queue to be entering the toilet when he went in with them and closed the door,” he said of one assault Danny Jaz was convicted of.

“I consider this is an occasion similar to [another victim’s experience]. Danny Jaz has targeted [her] and has ensured that he ended up in the toilet with her. He sexually violated her.”

Following the trial, the head of Operation Sinatra sat down with the Herald to speak about the case.

“These guys knew they had a market and they just made them vulnerable - they treated them like rock stars,” said Detective Inspector Scott Anderson.

“It’s scary.”

Detective Inspector Scott Anderson led the investigation into the Mama Hooch rapists. Photo / George Heard

Anderson said there was only one word to describe the Jaz brothers.

“Predators. When you look at how the whole thing ran at Mama Hooch - it was total predatory behaviour.

“They were living out some kind of fantasy… they thought they could do whatever they liked with whoever fell in front of them.

“I really think their Whatsapp [and other group chats] was an unfiltered insight into how they lived their lives - an unfiltered look into their lives.

“Some people will say it’s ‘boys being boys’ or ‘locker room chat’ but it’s actually what happened and it ended with sexual offending.

“It was a real insight into how they mistreated and disrespected women.”