The owner of a pizza chain who was found guilty earlier this year for blackmailing undocumented employees into working long hours at his restaurants, sometimes without pay, has been sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts announced Monday.
Stavros “Steve” Papantoniadis, 49, the owner of Stash’s Pizza, was sentenced to eight and a half years behind bars and will be required to pay a $35,000 fine following his release, according to the announcement. Federal officials in Massachusetts said Papantoniadis hired undocumented people in order to exploit them. “He deliberately hired foreign nationals who lacked authorization to work in the United States and then turned their lack of immigration status against them, threatening them with deportation and violence to keep them under his control,” United States Attorney Joshua S.
Levy said in a statement. According to a complaint obtained by HuffPost, Papantoniadis’ legal troubles began in 2017, when the Department of Labor brought a civil suit against him, alleging overtime wage violations. The suit was resolved two years later by a consent decree, but the department opened a criminal investigation into Papantoniadis soon after.
Prosecutors said Papantoniadis physically abused and threatened five men and one woman, who he purposely hired because they lacked immigration status. He would constantly demean and insult his employees, who were working 14 o.
