Judge Has No Latin Love for Richard Hatch

Canada

Judge Has No Latin Love for Richard Hatch

Tue., Apr. 14, 2009 3:45 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

AP Photo/Stew Milne

Oh, so now Richard Hatch wants to go to Exile Island.

A federal judge has denied the first-ever Survivor winner's request for permission to move to Buenos Aires after he's done serving a prison sentence for failing to pay taxes on his reality-TV winnings.

Hatch, who has been making bid after bid for freedom since being sentenced to four years and three months behind bars, stated in a motion filed this week that he is married to an Argentine national whose family is unable to travel to the U.S.

The 47-year-old Rhode Island resident is due to be transfered from a Morgantown, W. Va., lockup on May 12 to a halfway house. After six months, he'll be eligible for supervised release.

Prosecutors who oppposed his travel requests argued that Hatch, who has not yet put a dent in the $400,000 in back taxes he owes the government, will be required to undergo mental-health counseling and file amended tax returns—meaning, he shouldn't be allowed to go gallivanting in South America.

If he fails to file those returns, the U.S. District Attorney's Office will move to revoke his supervised release, and that will be difficult to do if he's in Argentina, prosecutors said.

Supervised release usually takes place within the district where a person was convicted, Chief U.S. Probation Officer Barry Weiner told the Providence Journal this week. Sometimes allowances are made for a transfer to another part of the U.S., but rarely is a felon allowed to continue serving a sentence in another country.

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