2 Jailed in Slavery Tax Refund Case

RICHMOND, Va. — A tax preparer was sentenced Thursday to 13 years in prison, and his daughter received just over three years, for defrauding the IRS by claiming a $500,000 refund as slavery reparations.

Robert L. Foster, 51, and Crystal Foster, 25, also were ordered by a federal judge to repay the IRS.

Robert Foster prepared his daughter’s tax forms and was convicted with his daughter in July of fraud. According to federal prosecutors, Foster prepared returns for several people claiming more than $3.6 million in reparations, most for about $500,000 each.

In an interview at the Northern Neck Regional Jail before his sentencing, Robert Foster maintained he did the right thing.

“Black people are not treated as humans, but as things by the U.S. government,” he said. “We were used as resources to enrich this country and we get no inheritance from the wealth we brought.”

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