3-year prison sentence in case of 2014 Cedarburg drink-spiking
A former Cedarburg restaurant operator was sentenced Friday to three years in prison plus five more on extended supervision for lacing a woman’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. A jury found him guilty last month.
The victim, Stephanie Hayes, read a 30-minute statement about how she’s suffered not only from the incident but its long aftermath.
“After he drugged me, harassed and intimidated he sued me. His victim,” she told Washington County Circuit Judge Todd Martens. “It was too much to bear” and led to panic attacks and a doctor’s treatment.
She said she spent nearly $200,000 defending Banas’ defamation lawsuit, which was ultimately dismissed.
Hayes, 39, went to police a couple days after eating and drinking with a friend at Banas’ restaurant in April 2014. After drinking a complimentary shot Banas brought them she didn’t remember much, she said. Her friend and her husband said she was acting very strange, went limp and couldn’t communicate.
After police began investigating, they found several other women with similar experiences going back to 2008, and ultimately believed Banas may have drugged up to 20 women in Cedarburg and Florida, where he moved in 2017 before returning recently to Wisconsin.
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.
Banas did not testify. His attorney, Brent Nistler, argued Hayes 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.
Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol asked for seven years in
prison, just six months shy of the maximum, characterizing the trial as having convicted Banas of multiple crimes over the years. He also asked that Banas be ordered to register as a sex offender, though he was not convicted of a sex crime.
Nistler argued that the conviction was for the single crime charged, and that the sentence had to be proportional to other offenses. He listed several examples of seven-year sentences for seemingly more serious offenses like fatal drunken-driving crashes, arson, child enticement and a fatal beating.
Nistler said Banas intends to appeal the conviction and therefore did not make a statement at sentencing. Nistler said a sentence of a year in prison would be appropriate because even though Banas has three prior convictions, they were for misdemeanors, and he has stayed out of trouble for five years.
Martens agreed that Banas faced sentencing only for the single count for which he was charged and convicted, and that the sentence needed to be proportional. He ordered Banas not use the internet without approval from his probation officer, but did not require him to register as a sex offender.
Banas must also pay more than $17,000 in costs (Gerol flew an expert on evidence of drugs in hair samples over from France to testify.) A hearing was set for May to determine the amount of restitution he will owe to Hayes.
“I appreciate the courage Ms. Hayes showed throughout this long ordeal,” the judge said. “It’s been a continuing victimization. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”