Peabody man sentenced to prison for tax fraud

The owner of a Peabody construction company was sentenced to prison Wednesday after failing to pay the Internal Revenue Service and his workers’ compensation insurance carrier more than $1 million, the US attorney’s office said.

Argyrios Mavros, 57, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and 18 months of supervised release, federal prosecutors said in a statement. Mavros was ordered to pay more than $1 million in restitution to the IRS and $158,524 to the insurance carrier.

In November, Mavros pleaded guilty to 10 counts of failure to collect or pay taxes and one count of mail fraud, prosecutors said.

“Overall, 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.”

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. Mavros failed to report these employees or their wages to avoid paying Social Security and Medicare taxes.