Boston pizzeria proprietor convicted of compelled labor and sentenced to eight.5 years

Stavros Papantoniadis, 49, of Westwood — the proprietor of Stash’s Pizza, a Massachusetts pizzeria chain — was sentenced Friday in federal court docket to 102 months in jail, one yr of supervised launch and ordered to pay a $35,000 high-quality.

Papantoniadis compelled or tried to power six victims — 5 males and one lady — to work for him and adjust to extreme office calls for by way of violent bodily abuse; threats of violence and critical hurt; and repeated threats to report the victims to immigration authorities for deportation, based on prosecutors.

In June, a jury convicted Papantoniadis of three counts of compelled labor and three counts of tried compelled labor. Papantoniadis has remained in custody since his arrest in March 2023.

A lawyer for Papantoniadis mentioned he’s pursuing a brand new trial and an attraction.

“Though the decide noticed match to condemn him barely beneath the rules, we’re dissatisfied within the size of the sentence,” Carmine Lepore mentioned in an e-mail. “The sentencing tips relevant to this case are extra applicable for human traffickers and sexual servitude defendants.”

Performing United States Lawyer Joshua Levy mentioned Papantoniadis was pushed by greed to prey on his employees.

“Labor trafficking exploits the susceptible by way of worry and intimidation, all in pursuit of the almighty buck. That’s what Stavros Papantoniadis did when he violated the rights of the individuals working in his eating places,” Levy mentioned.

“He intentionally employed overseas nationals who lacked authorization to work in the US after which turned their lack of immigration standing towards them, threatening them with deportation and violence to maintain them beneath his management,” he added.

Papantoniadis thinly staffed his pizza outlets, and intentionally employed employees with out immigration standing to work behind the scenes, for 14 or extra hours per day and as many as seven days per week, investigators mentioned.

To manage the undocumented employees, he made them consider that he would bodily hurt them or have them deported and monitored them with surveillance cameras. When Papantoniadis realized that one sufferer deliberate to give up, he choked him, inflicting that sufferer to flee the pizza store.

When one other employee tried to go away and drive away from certainly one of Papantoniadis’ pizza outlets, Papantoniadis chased the sufferer down Route 1 in Norwood, Massachusetts, and falsely reported the sufferer to the native police to strain the sufferer to return to work on the pizza store, prosecutors mentioned.