Man who was charged as worker-terrorizing pizza-place owner ordered held without bail

A federal judge today ordered Stavros Papantoniadis of Westwood held without bail pending the outcome of his "forced labor" case after concluding he would be a threat to victims and witnesses who might testify against him when he answers the charge that he brutalized workers for 15 years by beating and threatening them, throwing knives at them and, in one case, falsely sic'ing police on them.

Also playing into federal Magistrate Judge Judith Gail Dein's decision: The West Roxbury native's propensity for violence even outside of the case laid out against him. This includes being charged with assault and battery with a pizza shovel in 1996 and being sentenced to 2 1/2 years in jail in 1997 after his conviction for motor-vehicle homicide and leaving the scene of an accident.

The government has met its burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that no condition or combination of conditions of release will reasonably assure the safety of any other person and the community. The defendant's history of violence and threats puts potential witnesses at great risk. While home confinement and electronic monitoring could physically keep the defendant away from potential victims and witnesses, the court is unable to fashion conditions which would prevent the defendant from being in contact with or threatening them.

Papantoniadis owns Stash's pizza places on Blue Hill Avenue in Dorchester and Belgrade Avenue in Roslindale, and formerly owned several other pizzerias in the suburbs and Wareham. He was arrested last Thursday after a criminal investigation that began at the conclusion of a civil case by the federal Labor Department into his failure to pay workers for overtime, or sometimes at all, that resulted in him agreeing to pay workers more than $300,000 in back wages. Several of the workers involved in the Labor investigation agreed to talk to Homeland Security investigators.

Dein did disagree with prosecutors that his ties to Greece, where his mother is from, and his past travels to places such as Aruba - where he allegedly vacationed while taking unemployment payments - made him worthy of detention as a flight risk.

Innocent, etc.