Richard Hatch (Survivor contestant)

This article is about the Survivor contestant. For the actor, see Richard Hatch.

Richard Hatch
Born	April 8, 1961 (1961-04-08) Newport, Rhode Island, USA
Occupation	TV personality
Television	Survivor: Borneo Survivor: All-Stars The Apprentice 11
Spouse	Emiliano Cabral

Richard "Rich" Hatch (born April 8, 1961) is the former corporate trainer and consultant who won CBS' original Survivor series.

Early life

Prior to his Survivor appearance, Hatch was a corporate trainer from Newport, Rhode Island. He spent five years in the United States Army - two of them at the United States Military Academy (would have been Class of 1986).

Survivor

Survivor: Borneo

Hatch competed in Survivor: Borneo, the first edition of the show in the United States. He competed with the Tagi tribe, and quickly aligned with former Navy SEAL Rudy Boesch. He also became notorious for playing naked, repeating the strategy later on Survivor: All-Stars, where doing so resulted in a contentious incident with fellow Borneo and All-Star player Susan Hawk.

Once Sonja Christopher and Stacey Stillman were eliminated from the Tagi tribe, Hatch and Boesch formed a voting alliance with the two remaining female members of the tribe, Kelly Wiglesworth and Susan Hawk, who also had a strong bond. This left Dirk Been and Sean Kenniff as the only two to vote off. Dirk was voted off, and then Joel Klug was voted off of the Pagong tribe. A merge followed the elimination of Klug, and the tribes merged as Rattana at five members each. Sean Kenniff, the one remaining member of Tagi not in the alliance, voted using an alphabet strategy. The tight four voted for Gretchen Cordy, while the other six votes were all different. Greg Buis was next to go, as he received votes from the five former Tagi members as well as Jenna Lewis (who received the other three votes).

As the alliance continued to target the opposing tribe, Pagong, Jenna Lewis and Gervase Peterson were eliminated next.

Due to the rift in the relationship between Susan Hawk and Kelly Wiglesworth, Wiglesworth quickly became the new target of the now 3-way alliance between Hawk, Boesch and Hatch. Wiglesworth had opted out of the alliance, a move that Susan considered cowardly and simply a way to show off to the jury, thinking this assured her of winning. Wiglesworth won immunity, and Colleen Haskell was voted off. When Wiglesworth won immunity again, the 3-way alliance voted out Kenniff.

In the final four, Wiglesworth won immunity again, ensuring that one of the alliance would be voted out. In a 2–2 tie (the first tie in Survivor history), Hatch and Hawk were both in danger of elimination. When she revoted, Wiglesworth opted to eliminate Hawk, cementing the end of their friendship. At the Final Three immunity challenge, Hatch eliminated himself early, trusting both Wiglesworth and Boesch to take him to the Final Two regardless, and not wanting to go back on his word with Rudy if he himself won. When Wiglesworth won immunity, she voted out Rudy, making him the final member of the jury.

In the final two, Hatch was accused of being way too cocky and overall an evil person. But it was Hawk's comments that really struck home. Comparing Hatch to a snake, she claimed that she must vote for him as nature intended, because the snake must eat the rat, who was Wiglesworth. Clearly shaken by this statement, Wiglesworth would not acknowledge Hawk after the show, opting not to hug her.

Hatch became the first ever Sole Survivor in a 4–3 vote, gaining the votes of Rudy Boesch, Susan Hawk, Sean Kenniff, and Greg Buis. Buis asked Wiglesworth and Hatch to pick a number between one and ten.

Survivor: All-Stars

Hatch's appearance on Survivor: All-Stars was a very short but eventful one. As part of the Mogo Mogo tribe, they lost one member in Episode 3 when Survivor: The Amazon winner Jenna Morasca quit to be with her dying mother. When the Saboga tribe was dissolved in Episode 5, Mogo Mogo gained two extra members and when they lost immunity, they immediately targeted Hatch. Although Hatch got wind of his impending doom and put together a counter strategy, his plans were foiled and he was voted out. As the final vote was read he yelled, "I've been bamboozled!"

Before he was voted out, he was involved with an incident with Sue Hawk. During an immunity challenge, Hawk, while Hatch remained customarily naked, inexplicably turned off her original course to engage with Hatch. The next day, Hawk resigned from the game voluntarily, claiming that Hatch touched her and his nudity upset her.

In 2008, Survivor host Jeff Probst mentioned in an interview that Hatch smuggled a canister of matches onto Survivor: All-Stars "in a little container up his bum." The immediate result was that the Mogo Mogo tribe was able to get fire early on in the game. Since this incident all contestants are now strip searched.

Other appearances

• Hatch appeared on an all-reality show edition of the short lived game show Dog Eat Dog. He lost his challenge and was placed in the show's "dog pound".

• In August 2005, Hatch was a contestant of Battle of the Network Reality Stars in which his team lost in the finals.

• He also appeared on the Australian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (hosted by Eddie McGuire). He didn't do the (11 x 12) and got his fourth question wrong, becoming the first person in Australian Millionaire history to go home with AU$0.

• In an issue of Entertainment Weekly, Mark Burnett said that if Hatch was not under house arrest, he would have been invited for Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains.

He had a cameo as a patient in the Becker episode "One Wong Move" where Ted Danson's character received him as a patient, discussing the bizarre eating habits of the people on the television show, and mentioning that he didn't mind if he had to take his clothes off.

He appeared as himself (and naked) in the 2006 film Another Gay Movie.

He also appeared on the fourth celebrity edition of The Apprentice.

Personal life

Hatch was born and raised near Newport, RI, graduating from Middletown High School in 1979. He first majored in Marine Biology and Oceanography at Florida Institute of Technology before he enlisted in the Army in 1980. He served 5 years first stationed at Fort Bliss, TX, and Fort Stewart, GA, before attending USMAPS in Fort Monmouth, NJ, and the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY. Hatch left West Point for New York City where he worked for Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell (owners of Studio 54) at Palladium. He later attended Baruch Institute in NY and George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, during which time he became a sperm donor. Hatch spent 8 years in the Washington, DC, area and eventually graduated from National-Louis University with a Bachelor's degree in Management/Applied Behavioral Sciences. Hatch returned to Newport, RI, and adopted a 7-year-old boy. He later attended Rhode Island's Providence College pursuing a Master's degree in Education and Counseling.

Prior to winning CBS' original Survivor series, Hatch worked as a bartender, auto salesman, and licensed real estate agent before enjoying nearly fifteen successful years as a corporate trainer and consultant for his own company, TRi-WHALE Enterprises. Most of Hatch's years following his Survivor win, Hatch has spent fighting false charges of "attempting to evade taxes" brought by government officials Hatch claims are corrupt and bigoted, caught in a system uninterested in the truth. He served a 51-month sentence in Federal Prison for "attempting to evade taxes" which (as of January 2012) have yet to be determined to be due, and he served an additional 9 months in prison for allegedly not amending his 2000 and 2001 tax returns despite Hatch's claim (and expert testimony) it is not possible to amend tax returns which remain the subject of an on-going IRS audit. Hatch's case is docketed in the US Tax Court and, as of January 2012, has yet to be heard.

In 2003, Hatch met Emiliano Cabral in Argentina, and they were married in Canada. In 2011, two offspring (one son, one daughter) of Hatch's college-day sperm donations sought contact and have begun relationships with him.

Tax evasion conviction and imprisonment

On January 19, 2005, while Hatch was represented by a CPA and tax attorney and had been fully cooperating with an IRS civil inquiry into the unique circumstances of his 2000 and 2001 tax years since 2003, the United States Attorney's Office in Providence, Rhode Island, converted the civil inquiry to a criminal prosecution without benefit of an assessment ever having been completed and they reported that Hatch had failed to report the $1,010,000 he had received from the Survivor show on his Federal income tax returns (the additional $10,000 was paid for his appearance at the live Survivor reunion after the finale).

Hatch claims he filed his tax return using numbers the IRS specifically instructed him in writing to use, all the while informing him they would contact him if changes to the filing became necessary. Hatch also allegedly failed to report a portion of the income he received the following year for appearances on Boston's WQSX-FM radio station. Hatch maintains this accounting error arose in the confusion of being first paid for part of the year as an individual and later paid, after his professional advisors formed a corporation, as a corporate entity. Prosecutors eventually charged Hatch with tax evasion. When Hatch refused to be what he considered bullied into pleading guilty to a crime he did not commit, prosecutors then dropped the tax evasion charges, and months later, charged him with bank fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud and charity fraud - 10 counts in all. Hatch maintained his innocence and still refused to plead guilty to any charges.

Hatch was this time indicted on September 8, 2005. The 10-count indictment included all of the above charges, plus additional charges that he failed to report approximately $18,000 in rental income from properties he owned, failed to declare an automobile that he won on Survivor, used money as personal income that was paid to a charity organization that he had set up, and had knowingly submitted false statements in the above transactions. On January 25, 2006, a jury in Providence, Rhode Island acquitted Hatch of all charges except two counts of "attempting to evade taxes" and one count of "filing a false tax return," all three of which Hatch disputes and continues to challenge in court. His case is scheduled to be heard by the U.S. Tax Court on March 26, 2012.

On May 16, 2006, Hatch was sentenced to 51 months in prison, plus three years of supervised release to be served after serving his prison term - a sentence arguably longer than anyone in U.S. history for the amount of taxes prosecutors claimed Hatch owed but which, as of January 2012, have yet to be determined to be due. Hatch began serving his sentence at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility in Plymouth, Massachusetts. In July 2006, he was moved for a short period of time to the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, before being transferred to FCI Morgantown in Morgantown, West Virginia, in August 2006. On December 7, 2006, Hatch filed an appeal of his conviction in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston. Hatch's lawyer claimed that the trial judge prevented him from arguing that he had made a deal with CBS, whereby CBS would pay his taxes on his winnings, and he stated that CBS cheated on Survivor by providing food to other contestants.

On February 1, 2008, Hatch's appeal was denied. Hatch petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, asking that court to review the First Circuit decision. The Court denied the writ without comment on October 6, 2008. Hatch was released from FCI Morgantown on Thursday, May 14, 2009, to serve time in a halfway house (Boston's Coolidge House) and then home confinement. Hatch filed a petition with the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island for a seven week leave from his home confinement to appear in an anniversary season for Survivor, starting in Samoa on August 2009. Prosecutors objected to Hatch's request and the court denied it.

While on home confinement, Hatch's lawyer and NBC lawyers worked with the Bureau of Prisons to obtain written permission for him to be interviewed by NBC. Permission was granted in writing and Hatch was interviewed at his sister's home by Matt Lauer, Tony Potts, and Brian Crandall (all NBC reporters). The morning after those interviews aired, August 18, 2009, Hatch was shackled in handcuffs, leg irons and waist chains and taken in his underwear from his sister's home in Rhode Island to a Massachusetts jail where he was locked in solitary confinement for a month.

On September 9, 2009, Hatch's private and ACLU lawyers petitioned for habeas corpus, so he might return home for the remainder of his sentence, on the grounds that prison media-access rules apply only in prison, and that permissions are negotiated between the media and the prison, so their limitations did not bind Hatch. Hatch contends that he has been prosecuted and bullied in part because of his homosexuality. Rhode Island's former Attorney General, whose office spent huge sums of money prosecuting Hatch, responded that Hatch was "delusional.

On October 16, 2009, Hatch was released from prison after completing his federal sentence. Prosecutors brough Hatch back into federal court on December 15, 2010, claiming he violated the terms of his supervised release by failing to amend his federal income tax returns for the years 2000 and 2001. Despite expert testimony it is not possible to amend these returns which are the subject of an on-going audit and Hatch's case is docketed in U.S. Tax Court, on March 11, 2011, and after prosecutors requested Hatch be sent back to prison for 6 months, Judge William Smith sentenced Hatch to another nine months of incarceration. Prosecutors argued for additional supervised release to be imposed, but the judge ordered no standard conditions of supervised release. Instead, despite the fact no taxes have ever been determined to be owed by Hatch for the years in question, the judge ordered Hatch to pay 25% of any income for the next 26 months toward whatever tax obligation for 2000 and 2001 may someday be determined to be due. This order appears to be in direct contradiction with restrictions contained in I.R.C. Section 6213(a) prohibiting collection of the deficiencies, penalties, addition and unpaid prior assessments (plus statutory interest) until the decision of the Tax Court becomes final.

Additionally, Judge William Smith ordered Hatch to remain within the United States and refused to return his passport. Rather than ordering Hatch to self-report, Judge Smith ordered Hatch to surrender to the United States Marshall no later than noon on Monday, March 14, 2011, and the government paid to house Hatch for approximately 7 weeks in the private facility, Wyatt Detention Center, in Rhode Island before then transferring him first to Brooklyn, NY, for another 7 weeks or so, then to Oklahoma City for about two weeks, then to FCI Morgantown in Morgantown, West Virginia. Hatch was released from FCI Morgantown and sent to Rhode Island's ACI for approximately the last 7 weeks of his sentence. He was released on December 12, 2011.

External links

• Richard Hatch at the Internet Movie Database
• Hatch's criminal indictment on The Smoking Gun

Preceded by First

Title of Sole Survivor Borneo

Succeeded by Tina Wesson