Alleged sadistic, slave-driving pizzeria owner indicted on Covid-fraud charges

Stavros Papantoniadis, still behind bars as he awaits charges that he terrorized and beat employees at his Stash's pizza places in Dorchester and Roslindale, faces new charges that he defrauded a program meant to help small businesses stay afloat during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A federal grand jury in Boston today indicted Papantoniadis, formerly of Westwood but currently of the federal Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, RI, on two counts of wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.

Federal authorities charge that Papantoniadis managed to convince the Small Business Administration to give him a $500,000 Economic Injury Disaster Loan on Dec. 28, 2021 to help support the 18 alleged employees he had at his Boston Pizza Company in Randolph - even though he had sold that pizza place several months earlier.

According to the indictment, he had originally sought $1 million, but after the SBA rejected his application on Dec. 4, Papantoniadis convinced his CPA - not named in the indictment - to send in a bogus "certificate of good standing and/or tax compliance" certifying the place was open, in compliance with its state tax obligations.

The SBA then had authorized the $500,000 loan, which was transferred to Papantoniadis on Jan. 4, 2022, the indictment states.

Papantoniadis was arrested last March on federal forced-labor charges, allegedly because he underpaid the undocumented immigrants he liked to hire, went on frequent tirades against them and in at least two cases beat employees. He allegedly beat one employee, twice, so severely he required surgery.

Although he had once operated pizza places in Boston suburbs, at the time of his arrest, he was only running Stash's on Blue Hill Avenue in Dorchester and Belgrade Avenue in Roslindale. His family shut the Roslindale pizzeria but later re-opened it under a new name: Bel Ave.

A couple of days after his arrest, a magistrate judge in US District Court in Boston ordered him held without bail pending trial as a potential threat to the workers he allegedly intimidated and beat. He appealed that decision, but the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston upheld the no-bail ruling.

His trial on the forced-labor charges is currently scheduled for May 20.

Innocent, etc.