Federal Judge Susan Oki Mollway has rejected a bid by telecommunications entrepreneur Al Hee to have his seven federal tax convictions vacated, and has also rejected Hee’s request for a new trial.

Hee had claimed that Internal Revenue Service investigators misled him about the nature of their inquiry into the finances of his companies, and claimed the prosecution never proved that Hee had any criminal intent to evade taxes.

Hee, 61, was convicted July 13 in federal court in Honolulu of six counts of filing false income tax returns and one count that he corruptly impeded the IRS from correctly calculating and collecting his taxes, offenses that could draw prison terms of up to three years on each count.

Those federal tax charges involved expenses claimed by Waimana Enterprises Inc., a company Hee founded in 1988. Waimana is the parent company of Sandwich Isles Communications, which provides telecommunications services to more than 3,500 customers on Hawaiian homelands.

Hee was convicted of concealing from the IRS that Waimana deducted $2.75 million as business expenses it had paid to cover Hee’s personal expenses. Hee was also convicted of filing false federal tax returns because he failed to list as personal income the payments the company made to cover his personal expenses.

Among the supposed business expenses cited by prosecutors were $718,559 the company paid for college tuition and living expenses for Hee’s three children, $92,000 in payments for massages for Hee and $121,878 in credit card charges made by Hee for personal expenses, according to the federal indictment.

The indictment also listed $722,550 in payments by Waimana as wages to Hee’s children, who the indictment alleged did little or no work for the company. The indictment also alleged Waimana claimed as wages $590,201 that was paid to Hee’s wife, when she allegedly did no work for the company.

The inquiry that led to Hee’s indictment began with a civil tax audit of companies affiliated with Hee, including Waimana. The IRS is not permitted to use a civil audit as a pretext for developing a criminal investigation, and lawyers for Hee claimed that internal emails showed IRS officials continued to collect evidence as part of a civil audit weeks after IRS agents had decided to refer the case for criminal charges.

In a ruling Oct. 27, Mollway rejected that claim, explaining in a 53-page ruling that IRS officials knew a criminal referral was possible, but had not yet decided to pursue a criminal case.

As for the claim that the prosecution never proved that Hee deliberately broke the law, Mollway ruled that “the jury certainly had sufficient circumstantial evidence of Hee’s criminal intent to support his convictions.”

Mollway also rejected any claims that procedural errors during the trial might have tainted the outcome, concluding that “the evidence of Hee’s guilt introduced at trial was overwhelming.”

Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 30.

Sandwich Isles Communications Inc. owes $108.6 million to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for loans it obtained to finance its telecommunications network on Hawaiian homelands, and has been in default on those loans since 2013.

In other fallout from the federal tax case, the Federal Communications Commission in June interrupted payments of high-cost Universal Service Fund subsidies to Sandwich Isles pending an FCC audit of the company’s finances. That halt in federal subsidies is costing Sandwich Isles about $1.6 million per month, according to federal records.

State Department of Hawaiian Home Lands officials are also looking into issues related to the company. A spokeswoman for DHHL said in July the agency would undertake a “review and assessment” of Sandwich Isles to determine whether Hee’s legal problems could affect services for homesteaders.