‘Survivor’ Winner Richard Hatch Faces Court Setbacks

It isn’t shaping up to be a happy new year for original Survivor winner Richard Hatch, who is currently being prosecuted for charges stemming from his alleged failure to pay taxes on his million-dollar prize and other income, plus supposedly taking donations directed to a charity and putting them to personal use.

Earlier this month, Hatch requested the court grant him access to a copy of the IRS’s master file about him and also a copy of a statement made by one of his accountants to the agency. The judge rejected that request.

Then, last week, he lost again when the court refused to delay his trial, as he had requested. In fact, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Ernest Torres denied all three motions Hatch had filed, including the above, one asking for a separation of the counts against Hatch, and one that would have forced the IRS to fully detail just how much Hatch supposedly owes.

This puts Hatch in position for a January trial date. Jury selection is scheduled to begin January 10.

It will be interesting to see how much Hatch’s lawyers ask potential jurors about whether they watched him on Survivor. After all, Hatch was the first reality TV villain in the series that began the boom of such shows. He was known to be conniving, which is not exactly something the defense would want jurors to believe going into the trial.

But from the perspective of an outside viewer, things don’t look good for Hatch right now. While he has repeatedly denied the charges, he also has claimed he thought CBS was responsible to pay the taxes. On its face, this seems fairly ridiculous, since the prize was never said to be “one million dollars after taxes.” It also fails to address the other charges, such as his alleged failure to pay taxes on radio show wages.

It appears that next month, Hatch will have the opportunity to explain why all of these charges are false. But if he is convicted on all charges, he could face up to 75 years in prison and millions of dollars in fines – though the actual penalties would likelier be somewhat smaller. Hatch convinced a jury once that he deserved to win a million dollars. Can he convince another that he shouldn’t be prosecuted for failure to pay taxes on that same million? We’ll find out soon enough.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

Be sure to sign up for our e-mail update so you can stay informed about new articles on the site! And take a look at the rest of the site. You can find all of our recaps and other info on this show at the Survivor: Guatemala page, and take a look at our The Amazing Race 8 page and our Apprentice: Martha Stewart page. You can even buy reality show stuff at our Reality TV Store!

For more news about Survivor, be sure to check out SirLinksALot: Survivor and Survivor Fever!