Hatcher, 50, was convicted in 2006 of failing to pay taxes on the $1 million he received for winning the CBS reality show's first season, which aired in 2000 and famously saw him stripping naked in front of the contestants. He served three years in jail. In 2009, he was ordered to refile his taxes from the 2000-2001 year. A judge ruled he failed to do so and he was sent back to prison in March 2011.
He spent nine months behind bars and was freed in December. Hatch was ordered to pay 25 percent of his gross income to the IRS, as part of the terms of his 26-month supervised release. Richard Hatch $25 IRS,
Hatch says he has earned only $500 since he last left prison and had asked that his January payment to the IRS be reduced to $25. A Rhode Island federal judge rejected his request on Tuesday, February 7, the Associated Press reported.
His lawyer, public defender Mary McElroy, told the news wire that 20 percent of Hatch's income goes to his accountant and agent and that the reality star is saving for an apartment. Hatch has maintained he is innocent and was "wrongfully imprisoned." He has also said CBS and the show's production company should pay his tax bill.
Since winning "Survivor," Hatch has appeared on other reality shows, such as "The Celebrity Apprentice." He said in December, following his release from prison, that he is trying to develop a new series about his relationship with children he conceived from his sperm donations and that a production company was involved in the project. He did not name the firm.
He said he has already met two of the children through the Donor Sibling Registry, which helps connect donors and their children.
Hatch, who is gay, also has an adopted son named Christopher, who is a university student. Hatch told E! News after he was released from jail that he was a sperm donor when he was in college and has "quite a few children." One of the ones he met is a 22-year-old Maine woman named Emily, who visited him in prison. The other is a 22-year-old New Jersey man named Devin.
A person named Devin O'Neil wrote on the Donor Sibling Registry's website in September 2010 about how he learned that Hatch was his biological father.
"I had remembered a physical description that my mom had given me of my donor when I was 12," O'Neil said. "Not so long story short I met the guy after an email I sent and got a DNA test. Turns out he was a match. The guy turned out to be Richard Hatch from that 'Survivor' show on CBS."
