BOSTON — The proprietor of two pizza restaurants in the Boston region has received a sentence exceeding eight years in prison after being found guilty of forced labor. Stavros Papantoniadis, 49, from Westwood and operator of Stash’s Pizza, a local chain, was sentenced Friday in a federal court to serve 102 months behind bars, followed by a year of supervised release, and was required to pay a $35,000 fine.
Papantoniadis coerced six individuals—five men and one woman—into working under his severe demands through various forms of aggression, including physical violence, threats of harm, and intimidation regarding their immigration status, according to the prosecution. This included the threat of reporting them to immigration authorities, which was utilized to control their employment. Papantoniadis was convicted in June on three counts of forced labor and three counts of attempted forced labor. He has been in custody since his arrest in March 2023.
His attorney stated that they are seeking a new trial alongside an appeal of the sentence. “While the judge chose to impose a sentence slightly below the guidelines, we are disheartened by the duration of the sentence,” Carmine Lepore expressed in an email. He emphasized that the sentencing recommendations in this case are more fitting for serious offenses like human trafficking and sexual servitude.
Acting United States Attorney Joshua Levy asserted that Papantoniadis acted out of greed, exploiting vulnerable workers for profit. “Labor trafficking takes advantage of those who are susceptible through threats and intimidation, all for financial gain. That is precisely what Stavros Papantoniadis did when he violated the rights of his restaurant employees,” Levy stated.
According to investigators, Papantoniadis intentionally understaffed his pizzerias, hiring undocumented workers to labor behind the scenes for excessive hours, often exceeding 14 hours a day and working up to seven days each week. To maintain his control over these workers, he instilled fear by threatening them with physical violence or deportation and kept a watchful eye on them with surveillance cameras.
In one alarming instance, when Papantoniadis discovered that a victim intended to quit, he choked them, which prompted that individual to escape from the restaurant. In another case, when a worker attempted to leave one of Papantoniadis’ establishments, he pursued them down Route 1 in Norwood, Massachusetts, reportedly calling the police to falsely accuse the worker to compel them to return to their job at the pizza shop, prosecutors revealed.