More than eight years in prison have been imposed on the owner of two pizza shops in the Boston area who were found guilty of forced labor- for using physical violence and threats of retaliation or deportation against workers who were illegally in the country – APNews reports.
The owner of the Massachusetts pizza chain Stash’s Pizza, Stavros Papantoniadis, 49, of Westwood, was sentenced in federal court on Friday to 102 months (8,5 years) in prison, one year of supervised release, and a $35,000 fine.
Intentionally Employing Illegal Migrants
Prosecutors claim that Papantoniadis used violent physical abuse, threats of violence and serious harm, and repeated threats to report the victims to immigration authorities for deportation in an attempt to coerce six victims—five men and one woman—to work for him and comply with excessive workplace demands. Papantoniadis was found guilty on three counts of forced labor and three counts of attempted forced labor by a jury in June. Since his arrest in March 2023, Papantoniadis has remained under arrest.
Papantoniadis’s attorney stated that he is seeking both an appeal and a new trial. Joshua Levy, the acting US attorney, claimed that Papantoniadis preyed on his employees out of greed.
“Labor trafficking exploits the vulnerable through fear and intimidation, all in pursuit of the almighty buck. That is what Stavros Papantoniadis did when he violated the rights of the people working in his restaurants,” Levy said.
Investigators found that Papantoniadis purposefully employed workers without immigration status to work behind the scenes for 14 or more hours a day, seven days a week, and he understaffed his pizza shops. He used surveillance cameras to keep an eye on the undocumented workers and gave them false hope that he would deport them or physically harm them. One victim left the pizza place after Papantoniadis choked him after learning that he intended to resign.
According to the prosecution, Papantoniadis chased the victim down Route 1 in Norwood, Massachusetts, after another employee attempted to drive away from one of his pizza shops. He then falsely reported the victim to the local police in an attempt to get the victim to return to work at the pizza shop.
Forced labor is Very Common in the United States
According to a 2023 study, 62% of all food products (apart from seafood) sold in the United States that were made using forced labor were probably made there.
The authors also explain that many U.S. food workers are at risk of being forced to work due to poverty, language barriers, and precarious immigration statuses; for instance, migrant workers with seasonal agricultural visas are bound to a particular employer.
One type of human trafficking is forced labor. By collaborating with law enforcement partners to discourage, disrupt, and dismantle the criminal networks involved in human trafficking, Homeland Security (HS) plays a crucial role in the fight against human trafficking. Special agents collaborate with nongovernmental organizations to protect and aid victims, use their knowledge and HS’s powers to seize assets and remove profit incentives, and prosecute traffickers. To improve prevention efforts, safeguard victims, and advance counterhuman trafficking law enforcement operations, HS is the leader of the DHS Center for Countering Human Trafficking (CCHT).