This is unbelievable to me. Richard Hatch, winner of the first season of Survivor, neglected to pay the taxes on his $1 Million prize and other income he earned as a result of his newfound celebrity.
The jury on the first Survivor didn?t take long to deliberate and came up with a closely split decision ? four votes out of seven for Richard Hatch to win. Hatch?s latest appearance in front of a jury was similar ? they deliberated for less than a day and ended with a split decision. Hatch was found guilty of three of the ten allegations leveled against him by prosecutors.
The three charges of which he was convicted were those that focused on Hatch?s failure to pay taxes ? on his million-dollar Survivor prize, $327,000 he earned from a Boston radio show, and $28,000 in rent income. The other seven were related to bank, mail, and wire fraud charges, including those related to allegations that he misused funds that were directed to a charity he ran, Horizon Bound.
With the three convictions, Hatch faces a maximum sentence of 13 years in prison and $600,000 in fines. If he had been convicted on all ten counts, he could have faced 30 years in prison.
The interesting thing is that just a few days ago the press floated out a rumor that Hatch uncovered some cheating in Survivor and made a deal with the producers to not talk about it if they paid off his taxes. That sounds farfetched to me.
The new season of Survivor starts next Thursday.
Comments
One response to “Richard Hatch is Guilty”
When you read about this, it’s so obvious this guy is, by all accounts, a royal jerk with few redeeming qualities. I hope he gets some hard time. He must have just thought he was king of the world overnight and could get away with anything.