Ozaukee jury convicts man of drugging woman at his restaurant

Thanks to testimony from seven women who said they also were victims of being surreptitiously drugged by Jacob Banas, it took less than two hours on Wednesday for a jury of five men and seven women to find Banas guilty of drugging a woman in his Cedarburg restaurant in 2014. 

“Lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice,” Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol told the Ozaukee County jury in his closing argument while showing jurors photos of each woman. “What are the odds” that eight women, who have no relation to each other, would have the same experience after being with Banas.

“It only happened after they came in contact with the defendant. Jacob Banas is the link,” he said.

Banas was charged in 2018 with one count of administering a dangerous or stupefying drug, a felony, to Stephanie Hayes on the night of April 8, 2014, at his restaurant, The August Weber Haus.

Hayes testified Monday that she went to the August Weber Haus that night with a friend to celebrate being hired as executive director of the Cedarburg Cultural Center.

Over a four-hour period, she said, the two women shared two bottles of wine over appetizers and entrees and drank one shot, containing what Hayes believed to be whiskey, provided to them by Banas. Hayes also took a sip from a vodka and Red Bull mixed drink, she said.

Banas left the restaurant shortly after 

Afterward, Hayes became disoriented, manic, cried uncontrollably and, after she got home, could not walk, passed out and vomited twice.

Hayes did not suspect that she had been drugged until she attended a party a few days later, held to welcome her to her new job, and told a friend what had happened. The friend said Banas had a reputation for drugging women.

Banas, 39, also has been accused by as many as 20 other women of drugging them, although he has not been criminally charged in those instances.

To convict Banas, the prosecution had to prove that Banas administered a drug, that the drug overpowered Hayes or altered her consciousness and that he did so to facilitate the commission of a crime.

With the jury absent from the courtroom, Gerol argued to Washington County Circuit Court Judge Todd Martens that the administration of a drug itself was the commission of a crime. 

“By drugging them, he essentially imprisoned them,” Gerol said.

Martens overruled Gerol, however, saying the law clearly required that it be proven that Banas intended to commit a crime, for instance a sexual assault or robbery.

  “I don’t think that’s a sensible reading of the statute,” Martens said to Gerol.

Martens was assigned to the case after three Ozaukee County judges recused themselves for various reasons.

Banas’ attorney, Brent Nistler, made a motion for dismissal, saying Gerol had failed to establish that Banas intended to commit a crime.

“There’s absolutely no evidence that Mr. Banas intended any harm,” he said.

Martens denied the motion, saying it was possible that Gerol could make a case that Banas may have intended to commit a crime when he gave the drink to Hayes but changed his mind and left.

On Tuesday, the seven women were allowed to testify as “other acts evidence.” They all described having experienced symptoms similar to Hayes after having drinks with Banas.

One woman testified that she saw Banas grab some pills from the floor behind the August Weber Haus bar and take them to the upstairs apartment, saying they were just Advil.

Women who said they had been victimized by Banas banded together with others to boycott the restaurant and form a group called Citizens for a Safer Cedarburg.

Banas, who currently lives in Clearwater, Fla., sued several of the women for defamation in 2016 and 2017. Neither of the cases has come to trial.

Hayes is one of the defendants in the civil case.

Also testifying was Pascal Kintz, a professor of legal medicine and senior forensic expert and head of the laboratory of toxicology at the Institute of Legal Medicine at the University of Strasbourg in France.

In court documents, Gerol called Kintz “possibly the world’s foremost authority on the use of hair analysis in drug-facilitated crimes.”

Kintz found the presence of doxylamine, an ingredient in sleep aids, and diphenhydramine, which is found in cold medicines. When they are combined with alcohol, they produce symptoms similar to those Hayes experienced.

Kintz said he found  large enough quantities of the drugs to incapacitate an adult, roughly equal to three normal doses.
Complicating matters, however, was that Hayes admitted she was taking an over-the-counter medication containing doxylamine diphenhydramine in the spring of 2014 to treat allergy and cold symptoms.

Nistler suggested Hayes’ condition was due to her having taken cold medications herself for weeks, combined with her drinking that night. 

“She got drunk, got sick and had a hangover. That’s it,” he said.

A search warrant executed after Hayes filed a complaint with Cedarburg Police discovered empty bottles of both drugs in Banas’s apartment.

Nistler also seized on Hayes’ admission she only went to police after she heard about Banas’ reputation “through the rumor mill.”

“With all the enemies Mr. Banas has made, (Gerol) never brought one person forward who could say, ‘I saw Mr. Banas spike a drink,’” Nistler said.

“We shouldn’t convict people on speculation based on a lot of emotional testimony,” he told the jury in his closing argument.

In the end, however, Gerol said the testimony of Hayes and the seven other women could not be ignored by the jury.

“From the beginning we thought about what the other women would say,” he said in an interview after the trial.  “I could not be more grateul for Stephanie and her husband and their confidence that we were working on the case. 

“In regard to all the women, their suffering is tragic and I regret that their pain was exacerbated by having to take the witness stand. But in the end, I hope they feel vindicated.”

Banas is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday, March 13.

He could be sentenced up to seven years and six months in prison followed by five years extended supervision.

Gerol asked that Banas be taken into custody, noting that Banas has sparred with victims on social media and that he lives in Florida, posing a flight risk.

Martens denied the motion, saying the $25,000 bail is enough to guarantee Banas appears for sentencing.