Since his conviction a year ago for evading taxes on the $1 million he won on Survivor, Richard Hatch and his lawyer have argued that the trial judge prevented them from going into why Hatch thought CBS would pay the taxes on his winnings.

They maintain that Hatch caught the show’s producers smuggling food to another contestant and that when he confronted producer Mark Burnett about it, he was led to believe that if he won the show’s jackpot he would be off the hook for the taxes. The issue was raised in court last January when the jury was not present, and was the basis of the appeal Hatch filed on Dec. 7.

But yesterday, federal prosecutors filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals, arguing that Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres gave Hatch’s lawyer, Michael Minns, plenty of opportunity to explore any possible tax implications that arose out of the alleged cheating. Minns simply failed to ask Burnett, a witness for the prosecution, or Hatch, who testified on his own behalf, whether a tax deal had been struck

Hatch, 45, of Newport, was convicted last January in U.S. District Court, Providence, of evading taxes on income from Survivor as well as a radio show he hosted, appearances he made and rental money he collected. Torres called Hatch’s many explanations for not paying the taxes “preposterous” and hit him with the toughest sentence he could, 51 months in prison. Hatch is serving his sentence at FCI Morgantown, W.Va., which is comparable to a minimum-security prison camp.

In their response to the appeal, lawyers for the U.S. Attorney’s office assert that Torres, while prohibiting Minns from delving into the rules of the reality game show, did make it clear that he would allow questions about the details of any tax deal made with Hatch.

“If it has anything to do with the terms of his payment and who was going to pay taxes on money he won, you can certainly get into it,” Torres said at one point, according to trial transcripts quoted by prosecutors.

But after Hatch testified about how the filming of the show nearly stopped “as a result of a number of things that took place” and how “I personally had many discussions with” Burnett and others afterward, Minns did not ask whether the conversations were about taxes.

Later in the trial, Minns told the judge he wanted to ask Hatch about how the rules of Survivor were “being constantly changed” and how “people with the program who did not want Richard Hatch to win, began to try and manipulate it for him to lose.” Hatch, he said, confronted the producers about the cheating and “left with the understanding that if he won the show, the studio would pay his taxes.”

Torres said “the details of how the show was being staged” were not relevant, but said, “If there is evidence as to what the persons running the Survivor show and responsible for compensating him may have told him about the taxability of his prize money or who would pay the taxes on the prize, that’s a different matter. I thought I made that clear, that you could go into that.”

In their brief, prosecutors assert that “faced with yet another opportunity to ask the key questions of Hatch, [Minns] stated that would not make ‘any sense whatsoever’ unless it was first put in ‘context.’ ”

In rebutting other legal challenges about evidence that Hatch raised in his appeal, the prosecutors stated, “The case against Hatch was overwhelming to say the least … None of these issues had any significant bearing on whether Hatch acted willfully when he grossly underreported his income in two separate years and on three separate returns.”

Minns also argued that the sentence Hatch received was too harsh. Torres lengthened the possible range of Hatch’s prison term after determining that Hatch had obstructed justice by being untruthful on the stand. Hatch, Minns noted, got more jail time than the combined sentences of Leona Helmsley, Pete Rose, Darryl Strawberry, Spiro Agnew, and several other well-know convicted tax evaders.

“The mere fact that other ‘prominent convicted citizens’ have received lesser sentences” is not grounds to appeal the sentence, prosecutors responded.