Stavros Papantoniadis, 49, the owner and operator of Stash’s Pizza, a chain of pizzerias in the greater Boston area, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to submitting false information to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts announced.
Between November 2021 and January 2022, Papantoniadis knowingly applied for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) from the SBA, falsely claiming that he was still the owner of a pizzeria in Randolph, Massachusetts, and that he had 18 employees at the location. In reality, Papantoniadis had sold the business several months prior to submitting the application.
As a result of his false representations, the SBA approved the loan and disbursed $499,900 to Papantoniadis. He faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for this charge.
In addition to the SBA loan fraud, Papantoniadis was convicted in June 2024 by a federal jury of three counts of forced labor and three counts of attempted forced labor. The conviction stemmed from his coercion of five men and one woman into working for him through violent physical abuse and repeated threats to report them to immigration authorities for deportation.
Papantoniadis was sentenced in October 2024 to eight and a half years in prison and ordered to pay a $35,000 fine for the forced labor charges. He has remained in custody since his arrest on March 16, 2023.
