Businessman Albert S.N. Hee was sentenced to 46 months in prison Wednesday for seven federal tax convictions, with Senior U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway describing Hee as a person who helped “tons of people,” but also engaged in a well-organized, long-term pattern of cheating on his taxes.
Mollway said she will recommend Hee serve his sentence at a Bureau of Prisons medical facility in Minnesota because of Hee’s severe allergies and heart condition. She ordered Hee to surrender to federal authorities to begin his term on April 4, but acknowledged Hee’s lawyers plan to appeal both the conviction and sentence.
A tearful Hee, 61, said he was humbled and embarrassed by the convictions, which he said were the culmination of 10 years of audits, investigations and prosecution. Before sentencing he turned to face about three dozen supporters in the federal courtroom, including some who were crying.
“I want to apologize to my friends and colleagues and to my employees for causing them to suffer through this ordeal,” he said. “I especially apologize to my parents and to my family for failing to meet the responsibilities and the high expectations that I expect of them, and they had every right to expect of me.”
Supporters in the gallery included two former Kamehameha Schools trustees — Janeen-Ann Olds and retired Adm. Robert Kihune — and former state Supreme Court Associate Justice James Duffy Jr. Each wrote letters to the court in support of Hee.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Larry Tong said Hee used his company, Waimana Enterprises Inc., as “his personal checkbook” for 10 years, spending $2.9 million in company funds on personal expenses including $96,000 on massages that were deducted as “consulting fees.”
Hee also claimed as business expenses $1.6 million in salaries and benefits provided to his wife and children, who were not actually employees of the company, prosecutors said. He also claimed $736,900 in college tuition, housing and other expenses for his children and more than $119,000 in personal credit card charges as business costs.
Those credit card charges included vacations for Hee’s family to Disney World, Tahiti, France and Switzerland, which Hee claimed were business-related. Hee also had Waimana pay $17,000 for a five-day family vacation at the Mauna Lani resort on Hawaii island that Hee claimed was a “stockholders meeting” even though he was the sole company shareholder.
Prosecutors also pointed out Hee bought a $1.3 million home in Santa Clara, Calif., in 2008 with corporate money, and told his accountants the property would be used by employees of the company. Instead, Hee’s children lived in the home rent-free for four years while they attended nearby Santa Clara University.
Most of those expenses were claimed as business deductions on Waimana’s corporate income tax returns, or were falsely characterized as “loans” from the company to Hee, prosecutors said. Hee did not report that money from the company as income on his personal income tax returns, and therefore did not pay taxes on it.
On July 10, Hee was convicted on seven charges, including corruptly interfering with the IRS as the agency attempted to calculate and collect his taxes, and for filing six personal tax returns that understated his income from 2007 to 2012.
In addition to the prison term, Mollway formally ordered Hee to pay $431,793 in restitution, but said Hee has already paid that money back to the IRS. Mollway also imposed a fine of $10,000.
Tong said Hee has shown “no remorse and absolutely no acceptance of responsibility.”
Tong also told Mollway he found it “particularly galling” that Hee cheated the government because it was the government that provided Hee with his United States Naval Academy education, and it was government subsidies that made it possible for his company to operate.
Waimana Enterprises Inc. in 1995 won the exclusive license to provide telecommunications services to customers on Hawaiian home lands, and in 1996 partially assigned that authorization to Waimana subsidiary Sandwich Isles Inc.
Sandwich Isles’ primary source of income has been subsidies paid from the Universal Service Fund, which is financed by a small charge levied nationally on consumers’ phone bills. The fund has paid Sandwich Isles more than $242 million in federal subsidies since 2003 to support its phone and data network.
Sandwich Isles, meanwhile, has paid millions of dollars in management and other fees to Waimana, money that made up much of Waimana’s income.
Hee’s attorney Michael Purpura described Hee as a self-made man and a disabled veteran. Purpura said the dozens of letters submitted to the court in support of Hee show he “has led a truly productive life.”
“It’s not about power, it’s not about having powerful friends,” Purpura said. “These letters reflect Mr. Hee doing good works day after day on behalf of ordinary people.”
Purpura also argued Hee should not go to prison because he suffers from severe food and environmental allergies as well as a heart condition, and even a term at a prison medical center could end up being life-threatening for Hee. He asked Mollway to sentence Hee to a term of probation.
Federal sentencing guidelines called for Hee to be sentenced to between 41 and 51 months in prison for the convictions.
Hee told Mollway: “It is only in the last two months that I have had to face my mortality and what this means to my life’s work.” He said he has always believed that “I am here to do good.”
Hee has testified that he did not intend to break the law, and followed the advice of his accountants. “I have delegated responsibility, but never accountability,” he told Mollway on Wednesday.
After a lengthy discussion of Hee’s allergies and the possible impact of incarceration on Hee’s health, Mollway said she has “considerable confidence” the federal prison system will be able to address his health needs.
Mollway said she was concerned about Hee’s demeanor during his testimony at trial, “which seemed to be minimizing the seriousness of what he had done.”
She then imposed a 36-month sentence for the six counts of filing false returns, and a consecutive 10-month sentence for corruptly interfering with IRS efforts to collect taxes, for a total of 46 months.
After sentencing, Hee stepped out of the courtroom into a hallway filled with his supporters, carrying a young girl in his arms. “Thanks, everybody,” he told the group, and boarded an elevator to leave the courthouse.
