By Blair Ensor and Jake Kenny of 
The Mama Hooch trial, Danny Jaz, left, Roberto Jaz appear in the Christchurch District Court charged with sexual violation 07 February 2023. Photo: Supplied / POOL
The father of the Mama Hooch predators, who accused police of corruptly obtaining false evidence against his sons, was the owner of the infamous bar.
It can also be revealed that a third Jaz brother was a member a chat group where women were objectified, and his siblings appeared to identify potential victims.
Michael Jaz, 61, and his middle son Davide were granted name suppression in May, hours before Danny and Roberto Jaz were exposed as the men who had drugged and sexually assaulted patrons of the venue. Roberto applied for the gagging order on their behalf.
The pair can now be named after they abandoned their fight for ongoing anonymity at a Christchurch District Court hearing on Friday.
At the same hearing, two men, aged 38 and 30, who earlier this year were acquitted of sexually violating Mama Hooch patrons, were granted permanent name suppression.
The 38-year-old man was discharged without conviction on a charge of supplying a small amount of MDMA, also known as ecstasy, to a woman on a night out at Mama Hooch.
Michael Jaz is the father of convicted Mama Hooch rapists Danny and Roberto Jaz. Photo: Supplied / Stuff
Michael Jaz was the sole director and shareholder of Mama Hooch Ltd and Jaz Holdings Ltd, the companies that owned Mama Hooch and nearby Italian restaurant Venuti, both of which were on Colombo St in Christchurch.
He flew to Melbourne in 2020 while Danny and Roberto were waiting to stand trial on an array of serious charges, and hasn't returned since.
Davide Jaz, a chef who helped manage both Mama Hooch and Venuti, was part of a WhatsApp group where his brothers seemed to identify young women they could target, boasted about sexual conquests, and joked about rape and the use of date rape drugs.
While police identified Davide as one of six people in the chat group, he did not face any charges.
Last month, Stuff revealed that after his sons were arrested, Michael Jaz accused police of corruption, claiming officers had forced women to fabricate evidence against Danny and Roberto.
"Why do the police force these girls to make up these lies about my sons?" he allegedly said during a meeting with police and other officials at the Christchurch City Council offices in March 2019.
At the same meeting, according to a police officer who was there, Jaz said "these girls - they throw themselves at my boys" and that Danny had "never had to force a girl to do anything".
The quotes and a series of videos found on devices linked to Roberto during the police investigation were submitted as evidence when police and other agencies opposed the renewal of Venuti's liquor licence at a District Licensing Committee hearing in January.
One video showed two men leaving Mama Hooch and trying to get into a taxi.
They were pursued by Danny and Roberto, and their father, Michael. A fight broke out between the groups. The father appeared to throw the first punch, hitting one of the men in the face. The men were then chased across the road where one was punched and kneed in the head by Danny while he was on the ground, then kicked in the head by Roberto.
Charges never stemmed from the incident.
In refusing the licence renewal application the following month, the committee said the video evidence they'd been shown was "perhaps the worst we have ever seen" and left them "in no doubt that there was no effective management in place and little or no desire by Michael Jaz or his sons to comply" with the law.
"It would be fair to say the management of the premises was out of control. The video of Michael Jaz throwing the first punch at a patron was most disturbing and is not the behaviour expected of a licensee."
Venuti has been closed since February.
The Jaz family ran Mama Hooch, pictured, and nearby Venuti on Colombo St. Mama Hooch’s premises has since been taken over by new owners and given a new name. Photo: David Walker / Stuff
Mama Hooch was sold in early 2020, before an application to renew its licence could be heard by the committee.
Stuff previously reported the Jaz family moved to Auckland from Australia in 2001, before relocating to Christchurch about two years later and opened Italian restaurant Portofino.
Michael Jaz was a regular fixture at the central city restaurant, and was often found schmoozing customers as they dined.
Over time, his family came to mingle with some of the city's elite, and often hosted friends for drinks on Sundays at their home. A police officer came to be known as one of Jaz's best friends.
Roberto's former partner, who worked for the Jaz family at Portofino in 2009, said it didn't take long for her to notice some warped views of women were shared among the family, including patriarch Michael Jaz.
The woman alleges Michael often made derogatory comments including asking why she was pursuing an education, saying "that's not needed for a woman" when she should be focusing on "being beautiful".
Michael "ruled" over the Jaz household. There were gendered roles in the family dynamic that stemmed from the father, she said.
"It was very unusual.
"I found him personally incredibly problematic. He was very arrogant…
"These aren't monsters who are born evil, this behaviour grew because they were enabled. He's created these monsters."
Portofino was written off by the earthquakes. But Michael Jaz was soon back in business. In 2013, he set up in Venuti and then, two years later, Mama Hooch. His sons worked at both venues.
During their investigation into Danny and Roberto Jaz's offending, police gathered evidence from more than 30 women, many of whom believed their drinks had been spiked on nights out at Mama Hooch. Some alleged they were then sexually assaulted.
Davide Jaz, a chef at Venuti, helped manage the venues, and posted photos of women he interviewed for waitressing jobs to the WhatsApp group and made comments about their appearances.
"Left one is one I met Sunday. She wants work," he said as he shared a photo of one woman. After another of the men requested a "better pic" of her, he posted her full name and said "heaps on facey".
Danny responded: "Dave ask her to come in."
Davide replied: "I did. When you want?"
He referred to another woman posted to the group by Danny as "average … work and looks".
In April, at the conclusion of a two-month trial, Danny and Roberto Jaz were each convicted of dozens of crimes, including rape, sexual violation, indecent assault, and spiking drinks.
From 2015 to 2018, Danny Jaz, 40, a father of two, attacked 15 women, many of whom he followed into the toilets at Mama Hooch late at night, where he forced himself upon them. Roberto, 38, sexually assaulted five women - filming one of them while he raped her at Venuti.
The pair will be sentenced in August.
In discharging the 38-year-old associate of the Jaz's without conviction on the drug charge, Judge Paul Mabey said it was hard to imagine a "lower level of offending of this type".
He accepted defence counsel's submissions that a conviction would impact the defendant's ability to travel to a country where members of his partner's family resided, and hamper future employment prospects.
"In my view, the fact of a conviction alone is wholly disproportionate."
During a trial earlier this year, the 38-year-old man was acquitted of an array of charges, including the rape of a drugged woman he and Roberto Jaz took turns having sex with at Venuti in 2017. Jaz was found guilty of the crime. Judge Mabey is due to release his full reasons for the decision next week, but on Friday he said the man had nothing to do with stupefying the woman, and the Crown had been unable to exclude his defence that he had a reasonable belief in consent.
Key to the acquittal were some of the comments the woman made during a video of the encounter, the judge said.
In permanently suppressing the name of the man, Judge Mabey said he had no difficulty in reaching a decision that publication would cause him extreme hardship. The public interest in knowing who he was did not outweigh that. If he were to be named, he would face lifelong stigma because of his links to Roberto and Danny Jaz, despite having been acquitted.
The judge permanently suppressed the name of the 30-year-old man on similar grounds.
The man was acquitted of sexually violating a drugged Mama Hooch patron at Jaz's home.
Despite escaping conviction, Judge Mabey was previously scathing of his attitude towards women, which was revealed in text messages obtained by police during their investigation.
In one message he referred to females as "just holes we put it in boys, nothing more".
Judge Mabey said the man treated women as commodities with no regard for their personal rights or privacy, and had a disregard for consent.
Michael and Davide Jaz have not responded to requests for comment.
* This story was first published by Stuff.
