Crime
Prosecutors say Stavros Papantoniadis trafficked 7 of his employees, all undocumented immigrants, by forcing them to work long hours and threatening to alert authorities if they refused.
The owner of local pizza shop Stash’s Pizza has been sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for forcing his employees, undocumented immigrants, to work long hours without pay and no breaks while threatening to tell law enforcement about their immigration status.
In addition to serving eight and a half years in prison, sentencing documents said business owner Stavros Papantoniadis, of Westwood, faces three years of supervised release and must pay a $35,000 fine.
Prosecutors said Papantoniadis designed his businesses to “to force victims to work against their will.” Papantoniadis used physical force, threats of violence, and threats of deportation to exercise control over his workers, prosecutors said.
In June, a jury found Papantoniadis guilty on three counts of forced labor and three counts of attempted forced labor, and acquitted him on one other forced labor charge. Papantoniadis’ indictment lists seven victims, all of whom were undocumented immigrants who worked at one of the establishments owned by him.
“As a result of his criminal conduct, his businesses were successful,” the sentencing document said. “At the same time, the victims lived in fear, working when they did not want to and living ever mindful of the physical and legal consequences the defendant could impose. That fear fueled the defendant’s operation.”
Papantoniadis’ methods of abuse
During the trial, prosecutors made the case that Papantoniadis purposely hired undocumented immigrants so he could force them into harsh working conditions without the threat of legal retaliation.
After Papantoniadis was found guilty, Acting U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Joshua Levy issued a statement detailing how Papantoniadis violated the law and his employees’ safety. In the statement, Levy said Papantoniadis would monitor his employees with security cameras, and purposely make them work more than 14 hours a day, seven days in a row.
When one of his workers threatened to quit, according to prosecutors, Papantoniadis choked the victim and forced him to flee.
Papantoniadis committed similar acts of intimidation toward other employees who tried to quit, prosecutors said.
“Papantoniadis told one victim that he would kill him and call immigration authorities; and he threatened another worker by telling him he knew where the victim lived,” Levy’s statement said. “When another worker tried to leave and drive away from one of Papantoniadis’ pizza shops, Papantoniadis chased the victim down Route 1 in Norwood, Mass., and falsely reported the victim to the local police in an effort to pressure the victim to return to work at the pizza shop.”
Representation for Papantoniadis told The Boston Globe that he did not traffic the victims, and instead they wanted to work for him.
“They came to work for him. He’s had hundreds, if not thousands, of employees in 32 years and these people, seven of them, come out of the woodwork,” representation for Papantoniadis told the Globe.
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