Last January, first Survivor winner Richard Hatch was sentenced to 51 months in prison for tax evasion.  However, the 45-year-old Newport, Rhode Island-native has continued to profess innocence over the said legal matter.

His feelings about being wrongfully imprisoned have compelled Hatch to speak up about Scooter Libby’s recent commutation.  The former presidential assistant, who was found guilty of lying to authorities and obstructing investigation, was supposed to spend 2½ years in prison.   However, due to the President’s commutation, Libby will now only be subject to two years probation and the $250,000 fine.

"What a country! Excessive sentence! Where's my pardon/commutation?” Richard Hatch wrote to The Boston Globe last Tuesday.

"If Bush believes the judge in Scooter Libby's case sentenced Libby too harshly, perhaps Bush should closely examine what bigoted and otherwise biased judges are doing every day all over the country.  Our system, with its judges (simple, flawed human beings) appointed for life and virtually without oversight, is destroying lives. I suggest we begin in Rhode Island with Ernest Torres."

The Boston Globe’s pop culture reporter and critic Joanna Weiss said that Hatch has been corresponding with her via email, mostly about his disdain over the country’s legal system and the Bush administration.  In one email, Hatch apparently compared himself to a Salem witch and explained why he believes he was unfairly placed in prison.

"So far, nobody has expressed much interest in most of what has occurred or is true in my case," Richard Hatch wrote to Weiss.  "I am absolutely innocent and I find such apathy personally sad but nonetheless fascinating."

In defending himself against the charges of tax evasion, Hatch said that he did not pay the taxes on his $1 million dollar cash prize because of a deal he made with CBS.  According to Hatch, the network agreed to pay the taxes for him in exchange for his silence about a cheating incident on Survivor 1, wherein production crew provided food to other castaways.

In May, Hatch’s lawyers filed an appeal to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, but the Survivor winner is still awaiting the results.

-Lisa Claustro, BuddyTV Staff Columnist

Source: realitytvworld.com

(Image Courtesy of The Associated Press)