The Boston Globe reported on Friday that the owner of a pizza chain was given more than eight years in jail after being found guilty of forced labor charges.
This summer, a jury found that Stavros “Steve” Papantoniadis, 49, the owner of Stash’s Pizza in Westwood, abused six of his workers by physically abusing them, threatening to hurt them, and deporting them if they didn’t do what he said.
As of June 7, Papantoniadis was found guilty of three counts of forced labor and three counts of trying to force labor.
The Globe reported that on Friday, a judge gave Papantoniadis a sentence of eight and a half years in federal jail, followed by a year of supervised release, a $35,000 fine, and paying back the people he hurt.
The newspaper reported that his lawyers said they would appeal and ask for a new hearing.
People had been complaining about Papantoniadis for a long time, and he was caught in March 2023. Workers’ rights are brought to light by this case, especially those who do not have legal immigrant status.
Officials said Papantoniadis would hire people who didn’t have the right to work in the United States to work behind the scenes. These people would be forced to work 14 hours or more, seven days a week. According to the evidence given in court, Papantoniadis ran his pizza shops with few employees and used surveillance cameras to keep an eye on them.
The main point of this case was how he treated six employees, five guys and one woman. Those in charge of the case said he threatened to hurt them or remove them if they didn’t do what he wanted.
Investigators say that in one case, when he found out that an employee was planning to leave, he choked him severely. When other workers wanted to quit, he told one that he would kill him and call the immigration officials. At the same time, he told another worker that he knew where he lived as a threat. Another worker tried to leave one of Papantoniadis’ shops, and he is said to have chased them down Route 1 in Norwood and lied to the police about them to get them to stay at work.
“Stavros Papantoniadis made his workers afraid.” He didn’t pay them enough and made threats against them, including arrest for some and physical abuse for many. Today, the jury saw how badly Papantoniadis treated his workers and found him guilty of violating the law against forced labor, said Michael J. Krol, who is in charge of Homeland Security investigations in New England.
This is not the first time Papantoniadis has been questioned about how they treat their workers. It was in March 2017 that the U.S. Department of Labor first sued Stash’s Pizza, Boston Pizza Co., Weymouth Pizza Co., and their owners, Stavros “Steve” Papantoniadis and Polyxeny “Paulina” Papantoniadis. The lawsuit said that between November 2013 and March 2016, the defendants didn’t pay 120 workers extra, lied about their pay rates, and tampered with their time records.
In 2018, the department got an injunction from the court to stop violations that kept happening after the lawsuit was filed. The injunction also said that the defendants couldn’t punish current and former workers or tell them to lie to or not talk to WHD investigators. Representatives from the Department went to each restaurant and read the order to the workers in their own languages to make sure they understood what it meant and that they knew they could talk to the Department about working conditions.
The owners of the business were told to pay more than $300,000 in back wages in 2019.
And after that, Stash’s Pizza has been the subject of three reports to the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office since 2019 for violating wage and hour laws.
There are state and federal laws that protect all workers, no matter what their immigration situation is.
Source: More Than 8 Years in Jail for Forced Labor by the Owner of Stash’s Pizza
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