By JUSTIN BERGMAN
Associated Press

RICHMOND — A Virginia tax preparer was sentenced Thursday to 13 years in prison and his daughter was sentenced to just over three years for filing a false income tax return claiming nonexistent slavery reparations.

Robert L. Foster, 51, and Crystal Foster, 25, also were ordered by a federal judge to repay the Internal Revenue Service about half of the $500,000 refund the daughter received in October 2001.

The daughter had spent the money in eight days, buying a $40,000 Mercedes-Benz, paying off student loans and helping her brother pay for his first year at Virginia Tech. Prosecutors say only about half the money has been recovered.

Robert Foster prepared his daughter’s tax forms and was convicted with her in July of trying to defraud the government. According to federal prosecutors, Foster prepared returns for several people claiming more than $3.6 million in reparations. Most of the claims were for about $500,000.

Crystal Foster collapsed after she was sentenced, screaming and crying for her children. Her attorney, David Lassiter, had pleaded for leniency, claiming his client was under her father’s control.

In an interview at the Northern Neck Regional Jail before sentencing, Robert Foster said he did the right thing. “Black people are not treated as humans, but as things by the U.S. government. We were used as resources to enrich this country and we get no inheritance from the wealth we brought,” he said.

On her tax forms, Crystal Foster claimed she had overpaid taxes on long-term capital gains in 2000. She listed a fictitious “Black Capital Investments” fund as the source of the gains.

The IRS says more than 80,000 tax returns were filed in 2001 seeking nonexistent slavery tax credits totaling $2.7 billion. More than $30 million was mistakenly paid out in slave reparations in 2000 and part of 2001. That number dropped significantly last year after stepped-up scrutiny of tax returns and an aggressive media campaign targeting scam artists promising to secure tax credits for black people.

IRS spokeswoman Michelle Lamishaw said the idea of filing reparations claims may have stemmed from a 1993 Essence magazine editorial urging black people to seek refunds of $43,206 per household.