BOSTON — A former Peabody construction company owner was sentenced Wednesday in federal court to 18 months in prison for tax and workers’ compensation fraud, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
Argyrios “Eric” Mavros, 57, was also sentenced to 18 months of supervised release for his role in a scheme to defraud the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of payroll taxes, and his workers’ compensation insurance carrier by failing to disclose how many workers he employed, prosecutors said.
On Nov. 21, 2021, Mavros pleaded guilty to 10 counts of failure to collect or pay over taxes and one count of mail fraud.
Mavros, who owned Mavros Construction, Inc., cashed more than $3.3 million in customer checks at a Peabody check-cashing business and used some of those funds to pay his employees in cash, prosecutors said.
He failed to report these employees or their wages in quarterly corporate-tax filings, to avoid paying Social Security and Medicare taxes on employee wages and withholding federal-income taxes, prosecutors said.
Mavros failed to pay and withhold federal taxes on more than $2.5 million in wages, resulting in a tax loss of more than $1 million, prosecutors said.
Additionally, Mavros failed to report these employees to his workers’ compensation insurance carrier, thereby defrauding the insurer of more than $150,000 in premiums, prosecutors said.
As part of his sentence, Mavros was also ordered to pay more than $1 million in restitution to the IRS and $158,524 to his workers’ compensation insurance carrier.
