04:42 PM EDT on Friday, July 21, 2006

BY RICHARD SALIT
Journal Staff Writer

It's not a show, but it is reality for Richard Hatch.

It's Survivor: Oklahoma.

For the first time since he was sentenced to 51 months in prison for evading taxes on his $1 million Survivor jackpot and other income, Hatch, 45, of Newport, has been moved to a federal facility.

He arrived several days ago at the at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City, having been held at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility, in Massachusetts, since his conviction in May.

Michael Minns, Hatch's Texas lawyer, said today that it was unclear whether Hatch will serve out his sentence at the Oklahoma prison. The facility is a hub for transferring prisoners throughout the federal system, but it also houses a permanent population of inmates, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. Hatch's projected release date is Oct. 7, 2009.

"He'd like to either be near family in Rhode Island or family in Florida. His mother goes there frequently,'' he said. "I would think that if that is where he is staying they would tell us.''

But, he said, "They wouldn't even tell us when he was en route to Oklahoma.''

Minns said that his office had been working on Hatch's behalf for an appropriate prison site for his client and to get him out of the relatively more secure Massachusetts facility where he has been held since his conviction in January. The judge considered Hatch a flight risk and ordered him held without bail until his sentencing.

"We have sent several letters trying to get him moved to wherever he was going to get assigned,'' said Minns. "He should be in a camp. The camps are the most comfortable of the uncomfortable. They are still jails, but they get to see the sky and be outside. It's bad for Richard who is an outdoor person.''

Hatch proved his affinity for the outdoors in the first season of the popular reality show when he outwitted and outlasted other contestants in a survival contest on an island off Borneo, in Malaysia. He won the CBS program's $1 million jackpot in 2000. But he was convicted of tax evasion and filing a false income tax return, both of which related to his show winnings and earnings he gained through his Survivor fame.

Minns filed a notice of appeal immediately following the trial and said he has been preparing the case. He said he speaks periodically with Hatch, who was placed in protective custody at Plymouth. Hatch is openly gay and competed in the nude on the seminal reality TV show.

Despite being held at Plymouth longer than any other federal prisoner in custody, "he's holding up amazingly well,'' said Minns. "He sounds a lot better than most.''