Richard Hatch was scheduled to be arraigned today on charges he failed to claim more than $1 million on his tax return.

09:18 AM EST on Monday, January 24, 2005

BY ANDY SMITH
Journal Television Writer

The life of Newport's Richard Hatch has been a tumultuous journey since he left his native Aquidneck Island in March of 2000 for tiny Pulau Tiga, off the Borneo coast, to participate in a then-unknown reality TV show called Survivor.

AP photo

Richard Hatch, the first winning castaway of the CBS television hit show 'Survivor,' holds his prize, a $1 million check, on Aug. 25, 2000, at the CBS Television studios in Los Angeles. When he was selected as the winner, 51.7 million TV viewers were watching.

In the latest chapter of the Hatch saga, he was scheduled to be arraigned today in U.S. District Court, Providence, on two charges of tax evasion. The weekend storm, though, has closed the court today and Hatch's arraignment will be rescheduled.

Federal prosecutors allege that Hatch, 43, of 21 Anandale Rd., filed false tax returns in 2000 and 2001 that failed to report the $1.01 million he won from Survivor in 2000 and the $321,139 he was paid as an on-air personality for WQSX-FM in Boston in 2001.

Hatch has signed an agreement to plead guilty to the charges.

As the winner of a show that bordered on a national obsession in the summer of 2000, Hatch became one of the most famous, or perhaps notorious, men in the country.

Since then, Hatch has rarely been out of the spotlight for very long. Sometimes he sought it out; sometimes unwelcome publicity found him.

After winning Survivor, Hatch appeared on the Today show, Late Night with David Letterman, The Rosie O'Donnell Show, Hollywood Squares, Entertainment Tonight, The Weakest Link and more.

He had a cameo part as himself in the sitcom Becker. He published a book. Another book was published about him.

Closer to home, Hatch had talk-radio gigs in Providence and Boston. He spoke to the graduating class at Middletown High School, his alma mater. He performed in a Newport operetta called Melinda and Her Sisters.

Hatch, who is gay, testified on behalf of a gay marriage bill last year at the Rhode Island State House. He even planned to get married himself.

Hatch often took a wry approach to his own fame -- and his well-publicized ego.

"That is one really odd thing. I went camping, I got naked, and I ended up a celebrity," he said in a 2001 speech. "That is not to say that I don't have qualities that are admirable. I like me, as you all probably know."

But not all the attention has been welcome.

Excluding the current tax charges, Hatch has been arrested twice since he won Survivor, once on a charge of second-degree child abuse, once on a charge of domestic assault after an encounter with an ex-boyfriend.

He has also sued both the Town of Middletown and the state's Department of Children, Youth and Families.

Hatch's arrest on the child abuse charge came on April 27, 2000, right after he returned from filming Survivor -- but before the world knew that he was the winner.

Middletown police alleged that Hatch had abused his son Chris, then 9, during an early-morning jog, pulling him by the ear and neck.

The DCYF removed Chris and placed him in foster care. On May 25, after a Family Court hearing, Chris was returned to Hatch's care.

Hatch vehemently denied the allegations, and in August 2000, the charge against him was dropped.

Meanwhile, Hatch sued both the town and the DCYF over the incident. He claimed DCYF violated his civil rights by wrongfully removing his son from his home.

In his suit against the town, Hatch claimed that he had been wrongfully arrested and that personal information had been improperly released to the media, damaging his reputation. Both lawsuits were ultimately dismissed by federal courts.

The Town of Middletown honored him with a "Richard Hatch Day" on Sept. 18, 2000, while the lawsuit was still pending.

Hatch was arrested next on Aug. 21, 2001, on a charge of domestic assault after an encounter with Glenn Boyanowski.

Boyanowski, who had been in a relationship with Hatch, told the police that he had gone to Hatch's home on Aug. 20. Hatch refused to let him in and allegedly grabbed Boyanowski around the neck and punched him in the head.

Hatch later testified that he merely pushed Boyanowski away.

Hatch was initially found guilty, but the conviction was overturned on appeal in February 2002.

On Nov. 17, 2004, Hatch and 14-year-old Chris made a dramatic appearance on psychologist Phil McGraw's syndicated TV show Dr. Phil, part of an episode titled "Pedophiles: A Parent's Worst Nightmare."

Hatch said Chris had become involved with a 28-year-old man that Hatch characterized as a sexual predator. Hatch said he was concerned enough to record his son's telephone conversations and discovered the two had agreed to meet.

According to an East Greenwich police report, Hatch told the police on Aug. 15 that he believed his son was with a resident of the town, and gave the police a name and address.

Police records said officers went to 21 Hyland Ave., where they found Jeffrey D. Resch, 28, who said he had a friend inside. He allowed officers to search the home and they found a 14-year-old boy -- unidentified in the report -- under the bed.

Resch was charged with enticement of children and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, both misdemeanors. Resch pleaded no contest to enticement; the other charge was dismissed.

Hatch, who was raised in Middletown, had a difficult childhood and adolescence, according to a phone interview he gave reporters right after winning Survivor.

"It was not a loving home by any stretch," he said.

In a biography posted on his Web site, www.richhatch.com, Hatch said he lived with his parents, Richard Sr., and Peggy, until they separated when he was 11. Hatch then lived with his mother until he was 15, when he moved in with his father.

He left his father's house during his senior year of high school, ready to drop out until a teacher, Paul Mello, agreed to let him move in on the condition that Hatch would stay in school. Hatch agreed, and graduated in 1979.

After high school, Hatch studied oceanography and marine biology in Florida for a year, then returned to Newport for the summer before joining the Army.

He spent five years in the Army and eventually got into West Point, but left before graduating.

He moved to New York and then to the Washington, D.C, area, where he started a corporate training company called Tri-Whale in 1987. In the mid-'90s he moved Tri-Whale Training back to Newport.

In early 2000, Hatch heard that CBS was looking for contestants for an odd new show called Survivor, in which 16 castaways must cooperate to survive, but also compete by voting each other out of the game.

Friends and family told Hatch that Survivor, with its mix of survival skills and psychology, sounded like it was made for him.

Turns out it was. Hatch out-manuevered everyone else in the game.

Sometimes it seemed like the other contestants were playing checkers while Hatch was playing chess. His strategy -- dominating an alliance that picked off the weak one by one -- became the template for other Survivor players to follow.

In the meantime, Hatch became the man America loved to hate.

He was arrogant, he was conniving and he liked to go around naked as much as possible. David Letterman took to calling him "the fat naked guy."

Letterman hadn't seen anything.

At one point, Hatch said, he weighed 360 pounds. He dropped 100 pounds before Survivor, and another 34 pounds while he was on Pulau Tiga.

For a while, Hatch's trainer, Jon Smyth, and his favorite restaurant, Gold's Wood-Fired Grille & Cafe in Middletown, basked in the limelight.

When CBS decided to capitalize on the success of Survivor in 2004 and put together an all-star edition of past players, Hatch was an obvious choice. "Rich is on everybody's wish list," said host Jeff Probst during a conference call.

But when Hatch got to the Pearl Islands, off the coast of Panama, for Survivor: All Stars he might as well have had a target painted on his back.

For one thing, he had already won $1 million on the first Survivor, and no one wanted to give another big check to him -- or to any past winner.

Second, he was Hatch, and no one trusted him. Finally, there was that nudity again.

So Hatch was voted off fairly early in the contest.

Of course, it wouldn't be Hatch without some controversy.

During one of the show's contests, a game of "capture the flag" on balance beams, Sue Hawk, one of Hatch's fellow contestants from the first edition of Survivor, made unwelcome contact with a naked Hatch.

Hawk had delivered an impassioned speech in the first Survivor comparing Hatch to a snake. In the all star Survivor, her encounter with the naked snake left her so distraught she quit the game.

In an appearance after the fact on the CBS Early Show, Hatch and Hawk agreed to put the incident behind them.

But Hatch didn't stop being Hatch.

"Did I learn anything on Survivor about me or anything meaningful in life and blah, blah, blah?" he said on a CBS Web site after he had been voted off the island. "No. Abso-freakin'-lutely not!"