Survivor: Borneo

51 months, then nine more: Richard Hatch's tax case

A federal jury convicted Richard Hatch on three counts, tax evasion and filing false returns, and acquitted him on the remaining fraud counts. He was sentenced in May 2006 to 51 months in prison. On 12 March 2011 he received nine more months for violating supervised release by not filing amended returns.

Court record The counts, the acquittals, the income figures and the sentence all come from the First Circuit's 2008 opinion affirming the case. The 2011 supervised release sentence comes from contemporaneous Rhode Island reporting.

Richard Hatch Richard Hatch

What the record shows

  • Court record A federal jury convicted Hatch on three counts: tax evasion under 26 U.S.C. section 7201 and filing false returns under section 7206(1). He was acquitted on the remaining fraud-related charges.
  • Court record He was sentenced in May 2006 to 51 months in prison, at the high end of the guideline range, plus three years of supervised release. The court applied an obstruction of justice enhancement.
  • Confirmed The unreported income was roughly $1.4 million. For 2000 that was over $1 million in Survivor winnings, $18,708 in rental income and $25,000 in diverted charitable donations. For 2001 it was about $374,510, including roughly $320,000 in radio income and a $27,074 car prize.
  • Confirmed The First Circuit affirmed the convictions and the sentence in 2008.
  • Court record On 12 March 2011 Hatch was sentenced to a further nine months in federal prison for violating the terms of his supervised release by failing to file amended 2000 and 2001 returns.
  • Unverified Civil litigation over Hatch's tax liability continued after the criminal case. No source reviewed here establishes how that civil litigation ended.
  • Unverified The Justice Department's own 2006 press release on the 51-month sentence returned a 403 to automated retrieval, so the figures and counts on this page are taken from the appellate opinion rather than from the government's announcement.

What the jury actually decided

A federal jury convicted Richard Hatch on three counts. Two of them were tax evasion under 26 U.S.C. section 7201, and the third was filing a false return under section 7206(1). On the remaining fraud-related charges the jury acquitted him.

That second half of the verdict is missing from almost every retelling, and it matters. Hatch was not convicted of fraud. Saying he was attaches a finding to him that a jury specifically declined to make. The convictions were about not reporting income and about what he put on a return, which is a different offence with different elements.

The $1.4 million was income, not a tax bill

The unreported income came to roughly $1.4 million across two tax years. For 2000 that was the Survivor winnings, over $1 million, plus $18,708 in rental income and $25,000 in charitable donations he diverted. For 2001 it was about $374,510, made up mostly of roughly $320,000 in radio income and a car prize valued at $27,074.

That figure is income he did not report. It is not the amount of tax at stake and it is not money taken from the government, so a line like "defrauded the IRS of $1.4 million" gets the arithmetic and the offence both wrong. The number describes what went unreported on the returns.

51 months in May 2006, and the appeal

The sentence came down in May 2006: 51 months in prison, at the high end of the guideline range, with three years of supervised release to follow. The court applied an obstruction of justice enhancement, which is what pushed the calculation up.

Hatch appealed. In 2008 the First Circuit affirmed both the convictions and the sentence, which is the point at which the criminal case stopped being open to argument. Anyone describing the conviction as overturned or reduced on appeal is describing something that did not happen.

Why he was back in prison in 2011

On 12 March 2011 a federal court sentenced Hatch to a further nine months in prison. This was not a new tax prosecution and not a second conviction for evasion. It was a violation of the supervised release imposed as part of the 2006 sentence, and the violation was a failure to file amended 2000 and 2001 returns.

The distinction is worth holding onto because the two prison terms get merged into one story. The first was punishment for the offences the jury found. The second was for not doing what the terms of his release required after he came out.

What this page does not establish

Civil litigation over Hatch's tax liability continued after the criminal case ended. No source reviewed here shows how that litigation was resolved, so nothing on this page should be read as a final civil number.

One sourcing note, since the figures here are specific. The Justice Department press release announcing the 51-month sentence returned a 403 to automated retrieval, so it could not be opened and read. Every count, dollar figure and sentencing detail above is drawn from the First Circuit's 2008 opinion instead, which sets them out directly.

People in this story

Questions people ask

Did Richard Hatch go to prison over his Survivor winnings?
Yes, in part. The over $1 million he won on the first season was the largest piece of roughly $1.4 million in income he did not report for 2000 and 2001. He was sentenced in May 2006 to 51 months.
What was Richard Hatch convicted of?
Three counts: tax evasion under 26 U.S.C. section 7201 and filing a false return under section 7206(1). A jury acquitted him on the remaining fraud-related charges.
Was Richard Hatch convicted of fraud?
No. The jury acquitted him on the fraud-related counts. His convictions were for tax evasion and filing a false return, which are separate offences.
How long was Richard Hatch's sentence?
51 months in prison, at the high end of the guideline range, plus three years of supervised release. The court applied an obstruction of justice enhancement, and the First Circuit affirmed the sentence in 2008.
Why did Richard Hatch go back to prison in 2011?
On 12 March 2011 he was sentenced to nine more months for violating supervised release by failing to file amended 2000 and 2001 returns. It was not a new conviction for tax evasion.

Sources

Checked on 2026-07-26. If something here is wrong or out of date, we want to know: get in touch.