Former Cedarburg restaurant operator guilty in drink spiking case

PORT WASHINGTON - A former Cedarburg restaurant operator was found guilty Wednesday of lacing a woman patron's drink with a debilitating drug in 2014.

Jacob Banas, 39, ran the August Weber Haus, a fondue restaurant and bar on Cedarburg's historic Washington Avenue that his parents owned. He was charged in 2018 with "administering a dangerous or stupefying drug," a felony. He faces up to 7½ years in prison and five more on extended supervision at his sentencing March 13.

The charge was related to Stephanie Hayes' encounter with Banas in April 2014. She reported she had eaten and drunk at the restaurant with a friend for about four hours, and before they left, Banas gave them free shots. Hayes testified she didn't remember much after that. Her friend and her husband said she was acting very strange, went limp and couldn't communicate. 

Hayes and her husband cried with relief when the verdict was announced.

Hayes, 39, testified that when she woke the next day, she felt awful, not like any hangover she'd ever experienced. When she told another friend about her experience a couple of nights later, she learned that several other women had reported similar experiences after encounters with Banas.

Hayes went to the police, who began investigating. The story became public based on a search warrant in the case, but no charges followed. News and rumors about Banas and the investigation built momentum around Cedarburg, and in 2016 he sued several people for defamation. That case has been on hold pending the outcome of the criminal case.

After community demand, the city revoked Banas' liquor license in 2017, citing erratic hours at the business.

By the time Banas was charged, prosecutors believed he may have drugged as many as 20 women. Hayes and seven others testified. Two said they woke up in Banas' apartment above the restaurant. One woke up in her own bed but inexplicably naked. Others said they became disoriented, had trouble walking and were led home by friends but woke feeling like they'd been "hit by a bus" and without memory of the time after encountering Banas.

None said they were sexually assaulted, but at least one said she didn't know if she was or not, and Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol suggested that was the crime Banas was trying to facilitate by lacing the women's drinks.

In his closing statement, Gerol credited "a number of courageous women who came here and told you what happened" to them, and argued they were all very credible.

He said it was human nature for most of them not to report something right away. "Someone's first reaction in that situation is shame, self-doubt and embarrassment," he said.

"They needed some affirmation that it wasn't their fault, that they're not alone."

Defense attorney Brent Nistler argued Hayes had merely had too much to drink while also taking cold medications. He said the exotic tests the state did on her hair samples showed the only drugs in her system around April 2014 were the ones in the medicines.

"It wasn't until the rumor mill started that she convinced herself that Mr. Banas had drugged her," Nistler said. 

"In a town the size of Cedarburg, in the social media age, people like to gossip, and that's what was going on here."

The other women's stories were allowed as "other acts evidence," to show motive, opportunity and method by Banas. None of the other incidents were charged.

Earlier Wednesday, Gerol tried to anchor that circumstantial evidence to some science.

Pascal Kintz directs the Laboratory at the Institute of Legal Medicine at the University of Strasbourg, France, specializing in forensic evidence of "drug-facilitated sexual assault" and pioneering use of hair samples to detect drugs that would have already left a person's blood or urine.

Retaining Kintz as an expert and flying him to Wisconsin made the Banas case the most expensive he's prosecuted, Gerol has indicated in earlier pleadings.

On Wednesday, Kintz explained how his advanced hair analysis can detect earlier exposure to doxylamine and diphenhydramine, sedatives whose effects are amplified when combined with alcohol.

Doxylamine and diphenhydramine are antihistamines that can be used as sleeping aids. Both are found in many over-the-counter medications. During the investigation, police found empty containers of diphenhydramine at the house where Banas was living in 2014.

Kintz said his tests on a hair sample from Hayes showed she had an elevated level of the drugs in the two-month period when she became ill after a drink from Banas.

Kintz admitted on cross-examination that he could not be sure if a large dose on a single date caused the heightened level. He also said he had not been told that Hayes admitted using cold medications containing the chemicals around that time.

Kintz also testified that he'd tested hair taken from Zeen Habboub in 2017, a few months after she said she had a similar experience after drinking with Banas in Tampa, Florida.

In that case, he said, he was testing only for the two drugs and found only diphenhydramine. He said he was not asked to test for Adderall, a drug Habboub testified she regularly took, as prescribed by her doctor, to treat ADHD.

Madeline Montgomery, from an FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, testified that she had heard of Kintz but that the FBI itself has not yet certified a test for the suspect chemicals in hair.

Contact Bruce Vielmetti at (414) 224-2187 or bvielmetti@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ProofHearsay.