South Carolina’s coastal agency has fined a Charleston County couple $289,000 for what officials say is the illegal construction of a seawall and other work on the beach at the Isle of Palms, where storms and rising ocean levels are threatening homes.

But the fine, one of the largest levied by South Carolina’s coastal department in its nearly 50-year history, isn’t sitting well with Rom and Renee Reddy, who bought their house on the island 10 years ago.

Rom Reddy says the state is targeting them, likening its efforts to those of the gestapo, the brutal Nazi police force of the 1940s. He says the coastal department has failed to maintain the beach and the agency has tried to keep him from conducting work to shield his property from the ocean.

The key point of dispute between Reddy and the state is a wall he built last year to fend off the ocean’s waves. Seawalls are illegal in South Carolina because they can block public access to the beach. When hit by waves, they can worsen beach erosion, even as the walls defend private property from the water.