Hatch

BOSTON — Survivor’s most infamous star and champion — who has often basked in the limelight and who comfortably took the witness stand in his own defense — was missing yesterday as his Texas attorney argued at the U.S. Circuit of Appeals for his tax evasion conviction to be overturned.

Richard Hatch had to remain at his federal prison in West Virginia rather than journey here to watch lawyer Michael Minns assert that Hatch was prevented from telling the whole story about why he didn’t pay taxes on the $1 million he won on Survivor.

Minns said the trial judge barred him from asking about alleged cheating on the TV show that Hatch says prompted him to confront the producers. It was those discussions that led Hatch to believe that CBS, to make it up to him, would pick up his taxes if he won the jackpot. A jury wouldn’t believe there was a tax deal without hearing about the alleged cheating that precipitated it, Minns told the three appeals judges hearing the case.

“It doesn’t make sense if you don’t tell why…” he said. To jurors, he said, “It would have been completely ridiculous.”

The appeals judges challenged Minns far more than they did assistant U.S. Attorney Donald C. Lockhart. Outside the courtroom, after the brief hearing, Minns said, “I’m not encouraged by that.” But, he added, the questions appeals judges ask don’t necessarily “mean anything” in predicting their decisions.

Hatch, 45, of Newport, was convicted last year in U.S. District Court, Providence, and sentenced to more than four years in prison by Judge Ernest C. Torres. After being labeled a flight risk, he was sent to FCI Morgantown, a minimum-security facility.

Rather than be handcuffed, shuttled up the coast and held in prison facilities far less comfortable than his wooded campus, Hatch followed his lawyer’s advice not to request attending the half-hour hearing, Minns said. However, a spokeswoman for the court said inmates aren’t legally entitled to attend appeals hearings, nor is it typical for defendants who aren’t incarcerated to attend such proceedings. Hatch’s sister and partner were there.

Hatch won the first season of the seminal reality TV show and became infamous as the cunning and openly gay contestant who competed in the nude.

Chief Judge Michael Boudin pressed Minns on whether Torres had precluded him from asking about the alleged tax deal and its origins or whether Minns simply failed to pointedly ask Hatch about it, as prosecutors argue.

Without such direct questioning, a judge might think “you are creating a sideshow,” Boudin said. If the trial transcripts reveal that Minns never explicitly asked about a tax deal, “You’re in a little bit of a bind,” Boudin said. “It’s a slightly suspicious case.”

“I believe I did exactly what you said,” Minns said. But he said he couldn’t go any further because the judge ruled “we can’t go into it.”

Lockhart read extensively from the transcript, concluding that “The District Court gave [Minns] a chance” to pursue questions about the tax deal. Torres simply explained that testimony about the show’s rules and alleged cheating was not “relevant in and of itself.”

Minns also argued that the Torres stymied his efforts to have an expert witness testify about the preparation of Hatch’s tax returns, which did not cite the Survivor winnings. Minns said the expert would have discredited a key prosecution witness, a tax preparer for Hatch whose testimony suggested that the Survivor winner was willfully hiding his earnings.

“This whole case boils down to her word versus his word,” Minns said. “Her credibility would have been destroyed.”

rsalit@projo.com