The IRS sent armed agents into a family bakery and drained $68,382 from its bank account.

Their “crime”? Depositing their OWN CASH in amounts under $10,000.

Then the government demanded ANOTHER $160,000 and a guilty plea to a FELONY.

The IRS called it “structuring”: deliberately keeping deposits small to dodge bank reporting rules.

DAVID VOCATURA: “I said to them, ‘Maybe I should get a lawyer.’ And they said, ‘You don’t need one, step in the back.’”

“Until the day they came in, I had no idea what structuring was.”

“I’m a law-abiding citizen. I can’t remember the last time I got a speeding ticket.”

Nearly three years after seizing the money, a prosecutor came back with a deal that carried up to FOUR YEARS IN PRISON:

DAVID VOCATURA: “They wanted us to pay another additional $160,000 in fines and plead to a felony charge of structuring.”

They refused.

You bake bread for three generations.

You pay your taxes.

You put your own money in the bank.

And the IRS treats you like a criminal, demanding nearly a quarter million dollars.

CONTEXT: Fortunately, the IRS didn’t get away with this one. Hours after the Institute for Justice sued, the IRS agreed to return all $68,382.22. Two weeks later, it withdrew a grand jury subpoena demanding eight years of the bakery’s business records. Crazy that they tried to ruin a business over depositing money into their own bank account.