The owner of two Boston-area pizzerias was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in federal prison for using violence and threats of deportation to make six migrants work long hours without days off or overtime pay.
Stavros "Steve" Papantoniadis, 47, was convicted in June after a jury trial that featured graphic testimony from the victims, public TV station WGBH reported at the time.
"He physically attacked and beat them. He called police to falsely report them and even prevent them from getting other jobs," Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Fogerty said during closing arguments.
"The defendant was bigger than any of them. He even boasted he'd actually killed someone else before. He called them Brazilian monkeys. He held back wages and hid their checks."
During Papantoniadis' sentencing in Boston on Friday, U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV said, "Based on the trial testimony, he was a bully, and he enjoyed being a bully," the Boston Globe reported.
"He enjoyed threatening or exercising control over people, abusing them," Saylor said. "It's hard to feel any sympathy for someone who does that."
Papantoniadis owns two Stash's Pizza eateries in Dorchester and Roslindale, Massachusetts, and previously owned several pizzerias around the state, in Norwood, Norwell, Randolph, Weymouth and Wareham, according to authorities.
He's been jailed since his March 2023 arrest and he appeared in court Friday wearing a tan inmate jumpsuit, according to the Globe.
Before being sentenced, Papantoniadis — who was found guilty of three counts of forced labor and three counts of attempted forced labor — claimed to have the "utmost respect" for immigrants who left "their whole world behind...for a better life," the Globe said.
"I'm not at all the person they made me out to be," he said.
On Monday, defense lawyer Carmine Lepore told the Associated Press that an appeal was planned.
"Although the judge saw fit to sentence him slightly beneath the guidelines, we are disappointed in the length of the sentence," Lepore said in an email. "The sentencing guidelines applicable to this case are more appropriate for human traffickers and sexual servitude defendants."
