News :: GLBT
Sept. Deadline Set for Hatch Appeal by Peter Cassels
EDGE ContributorTuesday Aug 8, 2006The 1st Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals has set Sept. 11 as the deadline for receiving briefs appealing Survivor winner Richard Hatch’s conviction for tax evasion, EDGE has learned exclusively.
Hatch, who is openly gay, is serving a 51-month sentence in a minimum-security federal prison camp in West Virginia. He was convicted on two counts of tax evasion and one count of filing incorrect tax returns in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island in January.
As the million-dollar winner of the first CBS-TV Survivor show in 2000, Hatch was arguably the world’s first reality TV celebrity. The government brought 10 charges of tax evasion and fraud against him for not declaring his Survivor winnings and other income in 2000 and 2001, but a jury acquitted him of the seven fraud counts
In an interview Aug. 7, Hatch attorney Michael Minns told EDGE he will meet the court’s deadline. "It’s very common for parties to ask for extensions and they usually get one extension," Minns reported. "I’m not planning on asking for one. It’s very important for Richard. He’s anxious to get his appeal heard."
The most common reason for granting extensions in appeal cases is that trial transcripts have not been completed. Minns already has the transcript of the Hatch trial and has placed most of his other work on hold to write the brief.
"It’s very important for Richard. He’s anxious to get his appeal heard." The U.S. attorney for Rhode Island has 15 days to respond to Minns’s brief and he has another 15 days to respond to the government’s brief.
Then the court must decide whether to hear oral arguments. The U.S. Court of Appeals only decides to hear about 10 percent of cases. Minns’s track record is better than those odds. "I’ve only been denied oral argument three times out of about 50 appeals," he told EDGE.
If the 1st Circuit, based in Boston, decides to hear the appeal, it will schedule a date for oral arguments before a panel of three judges. Each side is typically given 20 minutes to argue, but the brief is the primary basis for its ultimate decision, Minns said.
The nationally known Houston-based attorney has authored two books on income-tax law, one of them a best-seller. He has an excellent reputation among jurists and attorneys. One of his successful appeals, U.S. v. Powell, is the second most quoted in U.S. tax law. Another, Dixon v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue Service, was the largest tax-refund case in U.S. history--$3.2 billion for 1,300 airline pilots. In that 2003 case, the IRS was found to have committed fraud.
Minns has spoken with Hatch on the phone twice since his transfer to the Morgantown, W.Va., prison July 25. Since his conviction, Hatch previously had been held in a Massachusetts state facility that also accepts federal prisoners then briefly transferred to a federal facility in Oklahoma City. Asked how his client is coping, his attorney said, "It’s still prison and he would prefer to be a free citizen but it’s hugely improved. The conditions are difficult but humane."
Peter Cassels is a recipient of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association’s Excellence in Journalism award. His e-mail address is pcassels@edgepublications.com.
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