Boca Woman Has Nervous Breakdown After French Bakery Labels Her "Cake Thief," Lawsuit Says

Margarita Sciapin could not escape the rumors.

As she made her way around South Florida, she heard rumblings that she had perpetrated an egregious crime. Her 12-year-old daughter was taunted by other children in a gymnastics club, she says, while word traveled fast that she was responsible for an act of thievery.

In a lawsuit filed in Palm Beach County, Sciapin claims she could not pin down who was spreading the rumors until she stepped foot back in Paris Morning Bakery in Boca Raton. Posters of her as if she was a wanted fugitive were plastered all around the cash register, declaring "CAKE THIEF!"

The accusations, which stemmed from a past tiff between her and the establishment over a mocha-flavored confectionery, brought upon debilitating stress and anxiety that led her to be hospitalized for shortness of breath and elevated heart rate the following day, she claims.

Sciapin is demanding damages from Paris Morning for counts of defamation and infliction of emotional distress, claiming the posters damaged her reputation and caused her family's jewelry business to suffer loss in revenue.

"The defendant, through its employees, allowed the publication of false and defamatory written statements about the plaintiff, framing her as a thief to be knowingly and purposely published by the defendant's employee in its shop window," the lawsuit states.

The feud between Sciapin and the bakery, which has a handful of South Florida locations, began in January 2023. Sciapin says she was at the Boca Raton location when she purchased a delectable mocha cake for $29 but then realized the employee had given her the wrong product. She says the employee "could not simply switch the cakes" and instead suggested issuing a refund and charging her again for the desired morsel.

Not wanting to cause more trouble or run the risk of being charged twice, Sciapin claims, she decided to keep the original cake and told the employee "not to worry" about proceeding with more transactions or refunds.

After the rumors spread around the community and Sciapin returned to the bakery, she discovered the staff had hung the photos labeling her a "cake thief" next to its register, along with a receipt stating her full name, some of her credit card information, and a public notice about the kerfuffle, according to the complaint.

"This Karen thief stole a cake from us at 5 p.m. on January 22, 2023," one poster stated. "When an employee tried to explain that our refunds don't show up in statements immediately, she got angry, refused to believe the employee, took the cake, and left while her cake was already refunded. She was very impatient when the employee was trying to figure out how to do a refund receipt, instead of waiting, she ran off with the cake."

An employee of the bakery tells New Times that images taken from Sciapin's social media were used to produce the posters. Materials featuring Sciapin were distributed across Paris Morning's locations, she says.

"It's like a thing across our stores. They actually printed a bunch of different themes of her and then gave it to our stores in case she comes back. We have memorabilia of it in our kitchen," the employee says.

A second employee, a manager of the bakery, maintains that the fracas could have been avoided if the customer had been more patient during a busy time at the store.

"She didn't see the refund on her credit card and said she was just going to take the cake," the manager tells New Times. "If she would have waited for two minutes for the employee to text me, to figure out how to print a refund receipt, she would have gotten it. But she was rushing the employee and not being patient, not being very understanding."

Sciapin claims in the lawsuit that in the aftermath of the incident, when she reached out to the bakery, a staffer laughed at her request to remove the posters. She says that after confirming the store did process her refund, she gave her credit card to a friend, who visited the bakery to pay for the cake she had taken with her.

The bakery employees say the posters have been taken down from Paris Morning's public areas.

"They're not really for customers to see anymore," one employee tells New Times. "I hope she can be at peace with it, or something."