7 women describe blackouts with Banas
Restaurateur accused of drugging drink in 2014
Seven women who said they know the feeling of being drunk or hungover told a jury Tuesday that what they felt after having drinks with Jacob Banas was something completely different.
They described a variety of unexpected sensations: Hot flashes. Vomiting. Rubber legs. A hazy fog. Tunnel vision. All were most concerned about a complete lack of memory about their evenings.
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 related to Stephanie Hayes’ encounter with him there in April 2014.
The jury heard her story Monday. The other women’s testimony is part of the “other acts evidence” District Attorney Adam Gerol says demonstrates a method of operation that, along with expert hair analysis, will convince jurors Banas is guilty of the drugging.
He faces up to 71⁄2 years in prison if convicted, plus five more on extended supervision.
Morgan Geronime, 30, testified she worked for Banas for about 18 months while she was in college. He often gave customers and staff free shots, she said. On two occasions, she couldn’t remember anything about her evening after having some, even after her boyfriend told her things she’d said or done after coming home.
She also said she and another bartender once found a bunch of loose pills on the floor near the bar, that Banas said they were Advil and took them upstairs to his apartment.
Abby Debarge, 33, said in recorded testimony from earlier this month that she and some girlfriends went to Banas’ restaurant after work one night in 2009 and later to Maxwell’s across the street. Banas joined them she said, and her next firm memory was
waking up on a couch early the next morning, walking out of an apartment and realizing it was above the August Weber Haus.
Angela Landreville, 38, recalled going there with co-workers from a local spa on Dec. 30, 2010. She said she had three glasses of wine, and, as Banas was closing up, he gave her and her friend a dirty martini, which they shared.
Then she and her friend joined the rest of their group at Maxwell’s, Landreville said. The next thing she recalled was waking up naked in her own bed the next morning, sick, sore and very disoriented.
She said she texted Banas and he said he had walked her home and they’d fooled around before he had to let someone in his business, but that he returned only to find her door locked and no response to his knocks, so he went home.
Claire Thompson, 33, said she was with friends at Maxwell’s in November 2008. They met Banas there; Thompson said she already knew him. He invited them to August Weber Haus, which was closed, for food.
She remembers getting a piggyback ride from Banas to his business, where another man was behind the bar. She said she was offered a drink, but doesn’t know if she took it. Her next memory was waking up in Banas’ apartment upstairs.
Her father testified he got a call around 1:30 a.m. from his daughter’s phone. Banas was on the line and said he should get his daughter because she was drunk. Kurt Thompson said his daughter was on a chair, missing one shoe, and that he had put her over his shoulder to carry her downstairs to the car.
He said his daughter is normally bubbly and happy when drunk, but she was incoherent and stone-faced that morning.
A friend of Thompson’s testified he got a call from her phone that night with an unknown male voice on the other end who said he had “a naked girl in my bed.”
Claire Thompson reported the incident to the police the next day. “The feelings were too weird,” she said, “unlike any other drinking-related experience I’d had.”
The other women did not go to police. One, slightly older than those now in their 30s, who had been visiting Cedarburg from Illinois, said she was “ashamed that a woman my age would take a drink from a stranger.” Police later came to them, they said.
The investigation didn’t heat up until the 2014 incident, which led to publicity, community outrage and the rescinding of Banas’ liquor license. He moved to Florida.
Zeena Habboub, 23, testified that she worked with Banas at a Tampa bar in 2017 and went with him and his girlfriend to a large nightclub that June. He was getting the drinks, she said, and after about three vodkas, she said, she felt hot and dizzy and about to be sick.
She drove 30 minutes home but didn’t remember arriving or the behavior her boyfriend recorded because he thought it was so odd. The jury saw a pixelated video of Habboub, half-naked in front of a toilet saying she couldn’t vomit and asking her boyfriend not to upload the video anywhere.
She said she felt like she must have been drugged, but, “I was in denial. I was asking myself why would he do that? We’re friends.”
After Banas was fired a couple of months later, she said, customers were asking about him and wanted to connect on social media. Looking for him online, she said, she discovered the stories from Wisconsin and suddenly her odd experience made sense.
“I didn’t want to believe someone put something in my drink,” she said. “Especially someone I know.”
On cross-examination, Habboub admitted she might have been taking her prescription Adderall that same night, though she generally skips doses when she expects to be drinking.
On Wednesday, forensic experts are expected to testify about the likely ingestion of certain drugs with date-rape effects by Habboub and Hayes, whose drink Banas is charged with adulterating in 2014, based on analysis of hair samples.
Banas’s attorney has said Hayes’ hair shows drugs from several over-thecounter medications she had been taking for cold symptoms.