The FCC has approved two enforcement items totaling over $76 million in recovery payments and proposed fines against Sandwich Isles Communications, Inc. (SIC), which provides phone and broadband service to customers on Hawaiian Home Lands. One Order requires SIC to refund over $27.2 million in USF support after the FCC determined that SIC received improper high-cost support from 2002 to 2015 from excessive and inflated management fees paid to its parent company. The second item—a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture and Order—proposes almost $49.6 million in penalties against Sandwich Isles and various controlling interests including former owner Albert Hee. The FCC found that SIC submitted and certified inaccurate data in cost studies between 2002 and 2013 and also that SIC misused high-cost support. Albert Hee was federally convicted for a variety of tax code violations and earlier this year was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison.
