PEABODY ― Argyrios “Eric” Mavros, the owner of former Mavros Construction Inc. in Peabody, pleaded guilty on Monday to defrauding the IRS of payroll taxes and defrauding his workers’-compensation insurance carrier by failing to disclose how many workers he employed.
Mavros, 57, pleaded guilty to 10 counts of failure to collect or pay over taxes and one count of mail fraud.
It is alleged that Mavros failed to pay and withhold federal taxes on more than $2.5 million in wages, which led to a tax loss of more than $1 million, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Mavros cashed more than $3.3 million in customer checks at a Peabody check-cashing business and used some of that money to pay his employees in cash.
He failed to report these employees or their wages in quarterly corporate tax filings so he could avoid paying Social Security and Medicare taxes on employee wages and avoid federal income taxes.
Mavros also failed to report these employees to his workers’-compensation insurance carrier, which defrauded his insurer of premiums.
The charge of failure to collect and pay over taxes carries a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $10,000.
The charge of mail fraud has a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000, or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater.
Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based on federal sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors.
U.S. Senior District Court Judge William G. Young scheduled sentencing for Feb. 17, 2022. Mavros was indicted in September 2020.
