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 $500,000 in 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 income tax refund, which Crystal Foster received in October 2001.

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.

The 13-year sentence could be one of the most severe for tax fraud related to reparations claims. According to the IRS, sentences handed down in similar cases have ranged from two to five years.

Robert Foster smiled and shrugged to the two dozen family members and friends in the courtroom after his sentencing.

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

"I just want to be at home with my two children," Crystal Foster told U.S. District Judge Richard L. Williams, breaking down as she recounted how her second son had been born in the back of a police van following her arrest. "It's not fair, the government sent me this check," she said.

Williams said Crystal Foster "was a willing participant in the crime" and benefited financially from it.

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.

Attorneys for both defendants said they planned to appeal. The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment following Thursday's hearing.

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 blacks.

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

The magazine said the figure was the modern-day equivalent of 40 acres and a mule, which Congress voted to give former slaves following the Civil War. The deal was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson.

Robert Foster said he increased the total tenfold to account for inflation.

The issue of slavery reparations has long simmered in the United States, but some say it may be gaining momentum.

Blacks last year sued a number of large corporations in several states, alleging they profited from slavery for two centuries and that blacks should be compensated.

More recently, Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich said that if elected he would order a study of reparations for descendants of slaves.

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