"Survivor" Hatch's Very Own Camp Cupcake

Canada

"Survivor" Hatch's Very Own Camp Cupcake

Wed., Aug. 2, 2006 12:20 PM PDT by Gina Serpe

Richard Hatch is settling for what's behind door number three. And by door, we mean the barred variety.

The original Survivor winner has been transferred to a correctional facility in West Virginia to carry out the duration of his 51-month sentence for evading taxes on his grand prize. This marks the third prison the clothes-eschewing reality TV hero has served time in since his day of reckoning in May.

Hatch will now call the West Virginia Federal Correctional Institute in Morgantown home, having arrived at his new digs a week ago.

The reality star will be one of roughly 1,200 inmates at the all-male minimum-security prison camp. There are no guard towers or security gates, and inmates, considered low flight risks and nonviolent offenders, are generally allowed to move around the facility without monitoring. The prison has both dormitory-style housing as well as two-person rooms, though it's unknown which type Hatch will be assigned to.

Hatch will be given an on-site work assignment, typically laundry, landscaping or janitorial duty, after completing a 30-day orientation program.

Hatch's new home is about 180 miles from another famous West Virginia lockup--Alderson Federal Prison Camp, aka Martha Stewart's Camp Cupcake.

Barring any more transfers, Hatch will remain there through October 2009.

Prior to the transfer, Hatch spent a few days in a federal prison transfer facility in Oklahoma City, where he was moved to after spending time in solitary confinement--for his safety, not his fellow inmates'--at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility in Massachusetts.

He was interred at Plymouth because the judge overseeing his case initially deemed Hatch a flight risk. He wound up in solitary because his status as an openly gay celebrity put him in double jeopardy.

Hatch, 45, had requested to serve his time in either his home state of Rhode Island or Florida, where his mother frequently visits.

The small-screen competitor was convicted in January on three charges of tax evasion after failing to pay taxes on his million-dollar prize winnings and associated income.

His four-year-plus sentence was harsher than expected, but the judge said he made his decision because he felt Hatch repeatedly perjured himself on the stand and showed no remorse for dodging the IRS.