Richard Hatch’s Sentencing Delayed While Prosecution Pushes for Extra Jail Time

First Survivor winner Richard Hatch’s sentencing has been delayed by several weeks as his legal team prepares a rebuttal to prosecution arguments that he should spend extra time in jail.

As regular readers will recall, Hatch was convicted of tax evasion in January for failure to pay the IRS its due on his million-dollar Survivor prize, income from a radio show, etc. Sentencing was originally scheduled for later this month. However, the defense attorneys asked the judge to hold off because they need more time to argue against a prosecution claim that Hatch obstructed justice by lying on the stand. Prosecutors want additional jail time tacked onto his sentence and Hatch’s attorneys obviously want to fight against that.

The judge pushed back sentencing until May 16. Hatch could get as much as 13 years in prison for the charges of which he was convicted; however, the judge has indicated it’s looking like a sentence of between two years, nine months and three years, five months is likely. This time did not include any extra requested by the prosecution.

But what did Hatch lie about? He did say several rather outlandish things, though. For example, he claimed under oath that he didn’t pay taxes on his million-dollar prize because he discussed it with producers, his accountant, and other contestants. He thought the producers would pay it, he said, though he also said they didn’t return his calls. And producer Mark Burnett pointed out earlier in the trial that a contract signed by all the contestants specifically said they are responsible for their own taxes.

This is also a likely target for the prosecution because Hatch’s own accountants testified against him, pointing out that he had several returns created – both including and excluding the Survivor winnings. He made some excuses about that, but he was not terribly believable.

There were some other statements made by Hatch on the stand that sounded a bit fishy – such as those relating to his use of money that was supposed to go to Horizon Bound, the charity he was in charge of. Or the claims relating to the way he deposited a check destined for Horizon Bound and allegedly added his own name to it. However, since he was not actually convicted of those charges, it seems odd that those statements could not be held against him.

But I have checked with the RealityNewsOnline crack legal staff and found that, in fact, the judge can consider such issues even though he was not convicted of the associated charges. And in fact, it’s done fairly routinely. For the sentencing, the prosecution doesn’t have to “prove” that Hatch was lying on the stand – the judge has discretion in imposing a sentence and he can decide on his own (or with the advice of the prosecution) that Hatch was untruthful. So even though the jury didn’t feel there was enough evidence to convict Hatch on the bank-related charge, for example, the judge could decide he was lying and add to his sentence on the tax charges.

I actually saw something similar in action once. I was at court to support a friend who had been a crime victim. One of the cases before hers had a kid who was charged with stealing a bike and some other more minor charges (and he was already in jail on other, unrelated charges, so he was obviously no angel). The prosecution couldn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the kid stole the bike, just that he was in possession of it. But the judge imposed a much higher sentence for the other charges than would otherwise have been warranted, basically because it was damned likely the kid did steal the bike.

Getting back to Hatch, he is going to be sentenced using the federal sentencing guidelines – which are just that, guidelines, but generally followed. One of the provisions is that a sentence can be increased for perjury during trial testimony. Again, the prosecution doesn’t have to prove perjury, but the judge can take into account the facts of the case. So if the judge accepts the prosecution’s allegations that Hatch lied on the stand, he can add time to the jail sentence.

For now, the defense will be trying to convince the judge otherwise. Meanwhile, as reported last week, Hatch remains in isolation, cut off from the rest of the prison population.

As always, RealityNewsOnline will continue to report on news related to the Hatch case as it happens.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com. Special thanks to the RNO crack legal staff (they know who they are)!

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