Local telecomunications executive Albert Hee appeared in U.S. District Court Tuesday to face federal tax evasion and tax fraud charges.

Hee pleaded not guilty. 

U.S. Magistrate Judge Kevin S.C. Chang set trial for next February. Chang told Hee he can remain free on $25,000 unsecured signature bond.

Hee’s Beverly Hills lawyer Steven Tosher had little to say about the case outside court.

“We look forward to defending the case in court. And that’s the place to make our claims,” he said.

A federal grand jury returned an indictment in September charging Hee with underreporting his income for 2007 by more than $250,000.

Last Wednesday, the grand jury returned a new indictment charging Hee with having one of his companies pay more than $4 million of his personal expenses from 2002-2012 and for failing to report those payments as income for tax years 2007 to 2012.

According to the indictment, those expenses include:

  >> $1.75 million in false wages and benefits for his wife and three children;

  >> $1.3 million to buy a house in Santa Clara, Calif., used exclusively by two of his children;

  >> $752,082 for college tuition, books and rent for his children;

  >> $121,878 for personal credit card payments; and 

  >> $92,000 for personal massages.

Hee is the president of Sandwich Isles Communications, which along with its two subsidiaries, provides telephone and high-speed Internet service to customers living on Hawaiian Home Lands.