A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office says in similar tax-evasion cases, a defendant "has to pay all the taxes he owes."

09:24 AM EST on Friday, January 27, 2006

BY RICHARD SALIT
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- The national spotlight shone once again on Rhode Island's most famous TV celebrity on Wednesday, but afterward Richard Hatch could not hit the talk shows or reality shows where he has so often been welcome and at ease.

Instead, Hatch spent his first full day in prison yesterday after being convicted the day before of tax evasion by a federal jury. Even in ignominy, Hatch was the star, the most compelling, if not credible, witness during the eight-day trial. But the show went on without him yesterday, as news programs from Good Morning America to Countdown with Keith Olbermann went to town on the Survivor winner's seemingly pathological scheming and self-destruction.

Hatch, 44, went straight to jail Wednesday afternoon after Judge Ernest C. Torres ordered him held without bail until his sentencing on April 25 (three days earlier than was announced in court). Contrary to initial reports, he was taken not to the Wyatt Detention Facility, in Central Falls, but to the Plymouth (Mass.) County Correctional Facility, an official there confirmed yesterday.

Meanwhile, the taxes that Hatch owes after failing to report multiple sources of income -- including the Pontiac Aztec and $1 million he won on the first season of Survivor, the $320,000 he received for cohosting a Boston radio program and $27,000 he collected in rent -- must still be resolved.

"In past cases, it has been a condition of a sentence for tax evasion that in addition to whatever criminal sentence is handed out, the defendant has to pay all the taxes he owes," Thomas Connell, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Rhode Island, said yesterday.

Torres said in court Wednesday that a presentencing report is likely to indicate that Hatch faces 33 to 41 months in prison for his conviction on two counts of tax evasion and one count of filing a false income tax return. But the sentence could be lengthened, Torres indicated, if prosecutors successfully argue that Hatch is guilty of obstruction of justice by perjuring himself on the witness stand, a customary charge for defendants who testify they are innocent and then found guilty.

Hatch opted to go to trial after walking away from an agreement with the U.S. Attorney's office to plead guilty to two counts of filing false tax returns.

"The guideline range at that point was 18 to 24 months," said Providence lawyer John MacDonald, who represented Hatch at trial with a Houston attorney. In exchange for pleading guilty, said MacDonald, the government was going to recommend that the judge sentence at the "lower end of the range."

But, he said, the guidelines were only advisory and the judge could have rejected the recommendation.

"There's no guarantee in federal court about what is going to happen, even with a plea agreement," MacDonald said. However, he said, "For the most part, district court judges are within the guidelines."

Still, Hatch opted to put his faith in 12 jurors.

"Rich has been going through this for three years and he wanted his day in court. He wanted the jury and the public to hear what was going through his mind when he made the decisions he did," said MacDonald.

"The very fact he went to trial shows he considered himself not guilty of the charges. . . . Implicit with the decision to go to trial was the fact he would have to testify to explain what he did and why he did it. You can't go to trial with a case like this and not testify."

MacDonald handled the closing arguments on seven fraud charges relating to the nonprofit Horizon Bound, the outdoor teen program Hatch said he hoped to revive. Hatch was acquitted of all the fraud charges, which were not part of the original plea agreement.

But Hatch didn't survive guilty verdicts on the tax charges at the core of the case. Robert Paquette, 43, of West Greenwich, told the Associated Press that his peers on the jury believed Hatch had legitimate questions about who was responsible for paying his taxes. But he said Hatch crossed the line when he didn't report other income sources.

"Even if you take the Survivor money out of there, there was still a lot of evidence," Paquette said.

Michael Minns, Hatch's other lawyer, argued the tax charges. Minns was not present for the verdict because he had another trial beginning in another state, said MacDonald.

MacDonald said yesterday that Hatch has until 10 days after his sentencing to file a notice of appeal.

"We're totally focused on the sentencing hearing in April," said MacDonald. "In due course, Rich will decide what he wants to do."

During the trial, Hatch testified that at the time of his tax problems, he was dealing with criminal charges that he abused his adopted son, Christopher. Hatch was an openly gay single parent at the time. The charge was dismissed and the state returned Christopher to Hatch's custody.

Hatch said at the trial that he has since married an Argentinean hotelier, who is 30, and holds an American visa that expires next month.

When asked about the future of Hatch's son, MacDonald said, "I don't know at this juncture what's going to happen to Christopher."

rsalit@projo.com / (401) 277-7467